Pickles

This is the Year of the Cucumber.  And because of this bonanza, I needed to do something with all the extras.  One family can only eat so much cucumber salad, after all.

So I thought I’d try making pickles, as I so predicted I would.  Know thyself, I guess.  Anyway, off to the Internet!  Unfortunately, unlike canning tomatoes, pickle-making has a far less unified following.  The USDA, who’s sole mission it seems is to sterilize everything, was not helpful.  If you sterilize a vegetable, as in–boil it for 45 minutes–it becomes mush.  This is fine for tomatoes, but when I tried a similar approach to pickling peppers a few years back, I ended up with a jar of pepper goo.  I therefore sought anecdotal information.

It boiled down (see what I did there?) to two main approaches: a high-temp and short duration treatment, or a lengthy but low-temp treatment.  I opted for the first simply because it’d be a quicker process.

The brine consisted of equal parts cider vinegar and water, with salt, then boiled.  I cut cucumbers into spears, packed two jars, then poured in the boiling brine, then flash-boiled the jars.  I added additional seasoning of dill seed, dill fronds, and crushed red pepper.

Admittedly, I have no idea what I’m doing here, but presumably the brine preserves the cucumbers, which supersedes the need for an extended sterilization process.  I suppose I’ll find out.

[Edit: 2 days later I found out.  Curiosity won out and I opened a jar.  I was very pleased with how they turned out, and the red pepper gives them a nice bite.]

–Simon

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