Friday, January 15, 2016

fifteenth - how to make pickled cucumbers


We're officially in the middle of a cucumber glut!

A crate a day. All you can eat; straight off the vine, in salads, and sandwiches, and dips and like apples. We're filling the baskets of anyone passing through. And it's still early in the season!

We planted cucumbers last year for the first time and I fell in love. I had one plant and I think I squealed in delight every single time I picked a fruit from its vine. They were so crunchy and delicious and so user friendly.

This year I planted trays and trays of seeds. And when their green leaves poked out of the soil I quickly repotted them to give their roots space until they took up half of the green house. They were a hardy plant and seemed to thrive under cover.

When it came time to plant them in the ground my farmer boy read me a section from Steve Solomon's Growing Vegetables South Of Australia;
Unless you intend to put up enough cucumber pickles to supply all the rellies, neighbours and friends, two vines will almost certainly become one vine too many.
And then I promptly ignored him and planted about 50 plants. Yep, I know.

So right now, we're getting through them, only just, but come next week, or into February - who knows.

Originally I found our pickle recipe on my instagram friend Jules @procrasticraft's page . We've made them so many times over the past few weeks that they've become a kitchen staple. They're super simple to make and ridiculously delicious to eat.

I asked Jules and she kindly gave me permission to share her recipe, so here it is. Just keep in mind that the measurements aren't exact and each time I make them the number of jars I fill changes.


PICKLED CUCUMBERS

Gather

  • five medium sized jars - sterilised
  • enough cucumbers to stuff the jars full
  • fresh bay leaves
  • 1tsp each per jar cumin, coriander, mustard seeds
  • 4 cups cider vinegar
  • 2 cup water
  • 3Tbs each sugar and iodised salt


Make

To each jar add 2 fresh bay leaves, and 1tsp each of cumin, coriander and mustard seeds and then your cucumbers.


In a saucepan put the cider vinegar, water, sugar and salt.

Heat until the sugar and the salt have dissolved but do not bring to the boil.

Cool slightly, fill each jar, seal and store.

Leave a day or two and then EAT!

I have no idea how long they'll last but given that they are full of vinegar, sugar and salt, I'd say quite some time. Also we refrigerate the jars after we open them.


Modifications

We're not big on cumin so we ditched it.
We have masses of garlic so we peel and slice a couple of cloves per jar.
We tried pepper corns but they didn't seem to do anything for the flavour.
We haven't tried dill yet because we don't have any but are going to grow some to add.
We cut down on the sugar for taste.

You know what else? I think there's no reason why this recipe wouldn't work as a pickler for all manner of things...beetroot, onions, carrots...

The only thing that I can't work out is if it's possible to reuse the liquid in another batch, it seems like such a waste to chuck it in the compost. Do you know?

So are you in a pickle?
Do you have a go-to recipe?
What are your fave things to pickle?
Do you think you'll try these?

Thanks Jules!

Happy pickling you guys

Love Kate

xoxo






8 comments:

  1. Kate...I need this right now! I am in the middle of a ridiculous cucumber overload. Thank you. It is not really a pickle but my fave relish is the Hot Zucchini Relish from Rohan's first book. It is a winner, I make it every summer and we eat it on everything. 50 plants...man, that is huge xx

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  2. Don't throw away the pickle juice. When my kids were little we always reused pickle juice. We would make slices of cucumbers and put them in the jars of juice in the fridge and in a couple of days we had pickles.

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  3. I planted two this year, and yep it is one vine too many.

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  4. Gorgeous pictures Kate...
    I do love cucumbers and your version of Jules recipe looks simply delicious!
    I have a delicious cucumber relish recipe that I make when I have a glut of cucs, it's delicious smeared over feta on a crusty piece of fresh bread. xx

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  5. Dan Lepard's book The Handmade Loaf has a recipe for rye bread made with leftover cucumber pickle juice. It's a fantastic book!

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  6. All those pickles make me so excited! I love preserving things and having excess from the garden is the absolute best feeling.
    Happy pickling and happy Saturday!
    Perhaps by February you could sell the ones you can't get rid of at a farmers market?

    Sarah xx

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  7. My favourite cucumber pickle recipe is Aurora Pickles from the CWA Preserves Cookbook. The pickling solution includes curry powder. I have also successfully dried a couple of batches of cucumbers in the food dehydrator -- at 125 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 hrs. Left a little longer, they would probably powder nicely in the food processor. Love your blog, Wendy.

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  8. Kate my mum and dad love a good pickle. Dad makes dill pickles. Some would say as the Americans eat. I now would say as the Germans eat having brought pickles from a stall at the town center market in Munich. Made with gherkins in the vakola afer brineing for several days they are packed in jars with a mix of dill garlic and whoe dried chilli. They keep on the shelf for years but not like they will make it for years without being cfunched and munched straight from the jar. Mum makes what she calls refrigerator pickles thinly sliced burplesd or lebanese mixes with sliced onion and packed in jars with a wa pickle solution that i think has vinegar sugar salt tumeric mustard seed celery seed peppercorns i think. As they arent cooked they wouldn't keep on the shelf but loads of jars are kept in their beer fridge. Crunchy and delicious they are devoured with cheese and bickies or in sandwiches with tomato fresh from the garden. I will have a look for exact recipes if you like. Living vicariously throughbothers gardens this yr. Happy pickling x ariel

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Thanks so much for stopping by...

I do read every single comment you leave and appreciate it very much, but I should let you know that I can be a wee bit on the useless side when replying to comments, that's just me, everyday life sometimes gets in the way....so I'll apologise now, just in case.

Kate XX

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