30 replies to this topic

[chowchow23]

hey everybody! i'm new here and i'm in love with pickles. i go through a jar a day and i was wondering if you guys know a simple recipe for pickling cucumbers? i'd like one without the need of dill, lime and peppers. thanks you guys

[Gifted Gourmet]

Real Cajun Recipes has one without using dill, lime, or peppers ... as does Splendid Table from NPR

[Michael Ruhlman]

do you have access to recently picked cukes at a farmers market? you might try a natural pickle. we write about it in our book charcuterie. Use a five percent salt solution (50 grams of salt per liter of water). pour it over a jar full of pickles with a bunch of tarragon, garlic and black peppercorns (cornichon seasoning), make sure everything stays submerged and in a relatively cool place, under 75 degrees, and in a week you should have a good natural pickle.

there's also a very good book devoted to pickling, can't remember thename but you could find it by that word at amazon.

[moosnsqrl]

I posted a request for a recipe similar to Zabar's (NYC) pickles here recently. I used the recipe for half-sours posted by jasi and was pleased with the results. I didn't do the math but what Mr. Ruhlman proposes must be very similar.

I let them stand for ~5 days and wished I had stopped them a bit earlier, though.

[Basilgirl]

Check out the Spicy Dill Pickles on epicurious.com - you can always just omit the dill. I've been making them for over 10 years and everyone loves them.
<small voice> I've been known to drink pickle juice when no one is looking

[lcdm]

These recipes sound good We have an abundance of cucumbers this year. Could you use regular cucumbers from the garden or are there special pickle cucumbers?

[Rachel Perlow]

If you aren't growing Kirby cucumbers, just pick your regular cucumbers when they are the size you like for pickles (4-5 inches). As a guide, take your eventual pickle storage container out to the garden, I use quart sized soup/deli containers, so any longer than 5 inches are too big for the container.

I use a tablespoon or so of generic* "pickling spice" in addition to the salt solution, and several peeled, slightly crushed, garlic cloves. Depending on the temp, they ferment into pickles in 5-14 days. Just check them every few days and refrigerate when they are just about where you like them. They continue to ripen, so don't let them go too long at room temp.

*I'm out of the pickling spice that came with my spice rack, so I just ordred some from Penseys. I'll report back on how I like it, but I'm very optimistic. From the link:

A high-quality blend for all pickling and canning, and packed with flavorful spices for traditional recipes. Use 2-3 tsp. per quart for bread and butter pickles, pickled eggs or onions, canned tomatoes and peppers. For dill pickles, add fresh dill sprigs and garlic cloves. Also nice for sauerbraten. We use less mustard seed than most pickling spice mixes, as mustard is the least expensive spice around. Penzeys pickling spice has the proper blend of spices, mustard and bay leaves. Hand-mixed from: yellow and brown Canadian mustard seeds, Jamaican allspice, cracked China cassia, cracked Turkish bay leaves, dill seed, Zanzibar cloves, cracked China ginger, Tellicherry peppercorns, star anise, Moroccan coriander, juniper berries, West Indies mace, cardamom and medium hot crushed red peppers.

[chowchow23]

If you aren't growing Kirby cucumbers, just pick your regular cucumbers when they are the size you like for pickles (4-5 inches). As a guide, take your eventual pickle storage container out to the garden, I use quart sized soup/deli containers, so any longer than 5 inches are too big for the container.

I use a tablespoon or so of generic* "pickling spice" in addition to the salt solution, and several peeled, slightly crushed, garlic cloves. Depending on the temp, they ferment into pickles in 5-14 days. Just check them every few days and refrigerate when they are just about where you like them. They continue to ripen, so don't let them go too long at room temp.

*I'm out of the pickling spice that came with my spice rack, so I just ordred some from Penseys. I'll report back on how I like it, but I'm very optimistic. From the link:

A high-quality blend for all pickling and canning, and packed with flavorful spices for traditional recipes. Use 2-3 tsp. per quart for bread and butter pickles, pickled eggs or onions, canned tomatoes and peppers. For dill pickles, add fresh dill sprigs and garlic cloves. Also nice for sauerbraten. We use less mustard seed than most pickling spice mixes, as mustard is the least expensive spice around. Penzeys pickling spice has the proper blend of spices, mustard and bay leaves. Hand-mixed from: yellow and brown Canadian mustard seeds, Jamaican allspice, cracked China cassia, cracked Turkish bay leaves, dill seed, Zanzibar cloves, cracked China ginger, Tellicherry peppercorns, star anise, Moroccan coriander, juniper berries, West Indies mace, cardamom and medium hot crushed red peppers.

thank you all so much for your replies =)

[sadistick]

Oh Pickles...How I love thee!

There are 2 ways which I love to prepare 'fresh' pickles (ie just pcked from the garden)

1, Wash, and slice thinly on a mandolin - toss with some sea salt and let the salt extract some of the water. Add your vinegar of choice - I prefer a good quality white wine vinegar, a little sugar, and pepper, and you are set!!!

2, To attain a good pickle in a shorter amount of time, quarter them lengthwise. Coat with salt and a little sugar to extract water. Then take some preferred seasonings - I like dill and chili, but since you do not, why not some coriander seeds, black pepper corns crushed, a bay leaf, and submerge all in vinegar of choice.

[andiesenji]

Here is my recipe for Bread and Butter refrigerator pickles.

Easy, quick and pretty good, if I do say so myself.

You can use this for mixed veggies, zuccini, etc., as well as cucumbers.

Add an extra 1/3 cup of sugar to the liquid and use it to pickle watermelon rind, (the pale green part with the skin peeled off.)
Andie's Bread and Butter pickles on Melinda Lee's web site.

[annachan]

I love to make Asian style pickles when I feel like pickle. Here's my version:

Cut cucumber in half lengthwise, then into 1 inch hald moons.
Salt the cucmber and let drain for a few minutes.
In a bowl, I put in seasoned rice vinegar, white vinegar, sugar, fish sauce and red pepper flakes. (Everything is to taste, just remember that the red pereper flakes will give out more heat to the liquid as it sits.)
Add cucmber and refrigerate. I usually let it sit for a few hours before snacking on them. If I make a larger quantity than for just a couple of days, I put it in a jar to store in the fridge.

[Meridian]

My 89 year old father has a memory of dill pickles his mother used to make which had no vinegar. I think the Ruhlman recipe with the appropriate dill, may fit the bill but I need to know how to keep them over the winter. Can anyone help me go from the pickles left in brine for 5 days to an actual jar of pickles available at Christmas?

[ExtraMSG]

We've been making our own half sours and full sours for our deli brunch and just put in some green tomatoes now that we found a supplier. We started with recipes from this book, adjusting them a little for our taste, and think it's a pretty good one:

http://www.amazon.co...3102338?ie=UTF8

[racheld]

All our pickles are made with some combination of dill and/or lime, so I'm just chiming in to say that every time I go to the index, the PICKLESSSSSS always reminds me of that delightful Mayberry episode with the inscrutable, curmudgeonly Oscar Holmolka (he of the magnificent eyebrows) as a Russian diplomat sent for a conference. They just can't agree at the meetings, and somehow all the envoys end up in Aunt Bea's kitchen, raiding the midnight fridge, getting along splendidly and settling the fate of the world over cold fried chicken and the jar of (Mr. H's pronunciation) Picklessssss.

And then, of course, there WERE the kerosene pickles. . .had there been THOSE on hand that night, the Cold War might have warmed up to explosive levels.

Sorry, it's late Saturday night, and I've got the sillies.

[Toliver]

Here is an eGullet-friendly link to the book ExtraMSG linked to:
"Pickled" by Lucy Norris & Elizabeth Watt

[qrn]

A good story about pickles...
35 years ago,just married ,and living an a small apartment.Found a recipie for Kosher dillls in the newspaper from a deli that I had eaten great pickles at.
I Bought some cukes ,garlic etc, and did them with brine and garlic and pickle spice. I packed about 8 big quart jars with them, and put them in the cupboard over the refrigerator in the very small kitchen.
Several days later, my wife was home sick and the jars ,which had been sealed tight, started to explode with great force, Blew the doors on the cabinets open and spread glass and stuff all over the place... Took forever to get it all cleaned up. I still get "THE LOOK" when I mention making pickles....
Bud

[lemniscate]

We are in Day 2 since I crocked my first ever batch of my Mom's polish dill recipe. I have borrowed a 3 gallon crock from my father-in-law and have about 4 pounds of pickles with salt, dill, and garlic brining away in my kitchen. Dill is crazy expensive here in the Desert SW. I had to get the gourmet baby dill plastic packaged kind. I keep sticking my nose over the crock to whiff that briny dilly smell. I haven't smelled that in 25 years. I like mine "new" so I think I will have my first dill on Sunday. Husband likes sours, so he must be more patient.

It's funny how a smell can trigger long lost memories and sensations. Like sitting on the picnic table during summer vacation with visiting cousins eating watermelon, your hands and forearms sticky from the juice running down and having a seed spitting contest.

I think I will get a watermelon today and challenge Husband to a contest.

[Rachel Perlow]

A good story about pickles...
  35 years ago,just married ,and living an a small apartment.Found a recipie for Kosher dillls in the newspaper from a deli that I had eaten great pickles at.
I Bought some cukes ,garlic etc, and did them with brine and garlic and pickle spice. I  packed about 8 big quart jars with them, and put them in the cupboard over the refrigerator in the very small kitchen.
  Several days later, my wife was home sick and the jars ,which had been sealed tight, started to explode with great force, Blew the doors on the cabinets open and spread glass and stuff all over the place... Took forever to get it all cleaned up. I still get "THE LOOK" when I mention making pickles....
Bud

JIC someone out there who wants to make pickles is scared by this story... The dangerous part was sealing the fermenting pickles container. It needs air to "breathe" and place for the resulting gases to go. Sealing them in glass??? Yikes!

However, after they are done to your liking, it is safe to put them in the fridge in closed containers. I use plastic though, I wonder if the gas continues to build in glass?

[qrn]

<[JIC someone out there who wants to make pickles is scared by this story... The <dangerous part was sealing the fermenting pickles container. It needs air <to "breathe" and place for the resulting gases to go. Sealing them in glass??? <Yikes!

<However, after they are done to your liking, it is safe to put them in the fridge in <closed containers. I use plastic though, I wonder if the gas continues to build in <glass?

I hope I have not scared anyone off , Sorry,, Yes , the sealing thing was the problem, I should have made that clearer...

I think under referig. the process stops so no gas is generated...Otherwise the ones in the cooler at the store would have problems...

Bud

[cocoagirl]

I have my half sours in a large glass mason jar- size that industrial food stuffs come in- lid is not on tight- will the pickles be okay??? I don't want them to explode?

[petite tête de chou]

About two months ago I made a small batch of refrigerator pickles using apple cider vinegar, water, salt, homemade pickling spice, white sugar and fresh garlic. Pretty good but need to be spicier. Decided to make more, reusing the brine. After about a week there's some cloudy sediment at the bottom of the jars. They have been in the 'fridge for the whole time. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong at all but I just *know* that once my husband sees it I better have a good answer as to why it's okay to be there. What do I say? Except, fine, more for me!

[ChefCrash]

It turned cold too early in mid Michigan. We have tons of green tomatoes.
We pickled them.

I use 120 g salt per liter of water (12%), and one part vinegar to two parts brine.
Every jar gets two cloves garlic and a few slices of Jalapeno.



The two jars on the left are cucumbers.


Jalapenos and carrots and celery mixed.

[racheld]

The two jars on the left are cucumbers.


Jalapenos and carrots and celery mixed.

Memories of a thousand summer days, the scent of vinegar and dill, salt-rimed counters, scatter of mustard seeds, celery seeds and lime, and the "tunck" as the jars seal. Just beautiful, CC, and they'll be the best tastes of Winter.

But south of the M/D, you'd have to include about a dozen little disks of carrot to fancy up the jalapenos---it's the LAW.

[searchingforclues]

I made deli type dill pickles this year in a crock with a brine consisting of water, salt, vinegar, dill, garlic, and pickling spices. This is the first time I have done them this way.

After I put the ingedients in the crock I put a plate on top, and, looking around for something heavy to weight the plate with to hold the cucumbers under the brine, I grabbed a sharpening stone and placed it on top, then put the whole thing in the fridge because I was going away for the weekend. The recipe said to leave it on the counter and skim off any scum or mold that might appear on the brine surface. I thought I should put it in the fridge to be safe, since I would be away.

Well, when I got back I found that the brine had seeped up on top of the plate - the plate was now a little sunk in the brine and the sharpening stone was surrounded by brine. So now I'm concerned that the metal (could it be lead? or steel?) could have contaminated the brine. Should I discard my lovely pickles? I removed the sharpening stone right away and the pickles sat on the counter for another 2 -3 weeks before I put them in an industrial sized jar in the fridge. I tasted one and they're very good, by the way! What would you do?

[Baron d'Apcher]

Mexican sour gherkins
Not exactly a cucumber, though the grape-sized fruit can be treated as such. They were grown from seed in an equally diminutive garden plot and recently produced an astonishing amount of fruit. Pickled with white wine vinegar brine supplemented with aromatics. Higher seed & water to flesh ratio than I care for, though they mingle well with olives, raisins and toasted almonds.

Planet of the grapes


Bumper to bumper crop


Itty bitty gherkin commission


Mucho melons

[heidih]

Well I will just take the images as wall art for starters - my those are tiny little things.

[Genkinaonna]

Baron-Cutest. Pickles. Ever!

My live in nanny (ie my dad) has been out of town for the last couple of months, severely limiting my late night Korean food intake. One of my favorite Korean restaurants gives you a dish of sweet daikon pickles when you sit down, and I've been craving them like mad, even though in general I can happily lead an otherwise pickle-free existence. I figured they couldn't be too hard to make. And I was right. Happy day! Now I can have them whenever I want! I'm even contemplating growing some daikon in the garden next summer for the true DIY experience.

[heidih]

One of my favorite Korean restaurants gives you a dish of sweet daikon pickles when you sit down, and I figured they couldn't be too hard to make. And I was right. Happy day!

How did you pickled them? I usually do a Vietnamese style water pickle with daikon and some carrot that is about 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 water with a touch of salt and sugar. That is one funky smelling jar when you open it.

[Genkinaonna]

It was water, sugar, and rice wine vinegar. The daikon cubes were salted and let sit overnight and then rinsed prior to adding them to the pickling liquid. They're sweet, but not as sweet as the ones at the restaurant.

[Shelby]

Mexican sour gherkins
Not exactly a cucumber, though the grape-sized fruit can be treated as such. They were grown from seed in an equally diminutive garden plot and recently produced an astonishing amount of fruit. Pickled with white wine vinegar brine supplemented with aromatics. Higher seed & water to flesh ratio than I care for, though they mingle well with olives, raisins and toasted almonds.

Planet of the grapes


Bumper to bumper crop


Itty bitty gherkin commission


Mucho melons

Those are the cutest pickles I've ever seen. Awesome.