Pickle recipes

[adp1906]

Hello! I was looking for a good pickle recipe.

Thanks for your help.

-Billy

[Susan G]

What were you planning to use as a base? Cukes, watermelon rind, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower? Do you like you pickles sweet, hot, dill or garlicky?

[Basilgirl]

Check out Spicy Dill Pickles on Epicurious.com. Easy and delicious. I've been making them for 10 years.

[Mayhaw Man]

I just put my mother's dill pickle recipe into recipe gullet.

Brooksie's Dill Pickles

They are easy and the recipe was designed to let the pickle maker make a few jars a day (as the cukes are pulled from the garden, which is what my Mom does) or you can go to the farmers market and get the goods and go home and make a ton.

Full credit for this recipe should go to Trudy Aarron (my mother changed them a little bit (added lots more peppers), but really this is Mrs. Aarron's recipe) my next door neighbor when I was growing up. She was raised in East Texas the daughter of the owner of a General Mercantile, and was about as good a cook as ever existed. Ya wanna talk about Jews and the South? She molded her two native cuisines together as well as anyone ever has (she was truly a master baker) AND to top it all off-after her boys were grown and gone she missed seeing them shoot fireworks for holidays and she used to go out and buy them for my brothers and I. Now that, my friends, is a great neighbor. In a world where many people hardly even know their next door neighbors I feel blessed to have had her around.

[Jensen]

I've got some great recipes for pickled beets and green tomato pickles but is that what you're looking for?

[DaCook]

I've got a great recipe for bread & butter pickles, made with young zuchinni, if that floats your boat.

[menton1]

There is also the New York-style pickle, made without any vinegar-- definitely worth a recipe!!

[DaCook]

That sounds like a recipe that my Baba used. It is actually a "fermented" dill pickle. Love them.

[ronnie_suburban]

I highly recommend The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich.

I've made 4 recipes from it already this summer (first ones will be ready in 2 days, w00t! ) and I've also eaten several other pickles that were made from recipes in this book. Not only are the recipes solid, but after reading this book you will likely feel very confident about improvising your own variations as well.

The book is divided into 10 sections. There is a primer section--which covers the basics and safety issues--as well as sections on fermented pickles, fresh pickles, cabbage pickles and freezer pickles to name just a few. There is also a section on pickling meats, fish and eggs. Can you say pickled tongue? I knew that you could It's a comprehensive resource which even includes a list of mail-order pickling supplies.

I tend to cook obsessively and I have become completely captivated by this book. I cannot say enough good things about it. And, at under $16.00, it's a real bargain as well.

=R=

[hjshorter]

The Joy of Pickling is great. I finally broke down and bought it after checking it out from the library over and over again. We've got pickled cauliflower in the fridge right now - it will be ready to eat tomorrow.

[andiesenji]

My original recipe for refrigerator bread and butter pickles is here

Andie's Bread and Butter pickles

It took me some time to develop this recipe and it works beautifully every time.

You can also make it with summer squash and also with mixed vegetables, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, carrots, little onions, etc.

If you like them spicier add more red peppers.

You can make this recipe in a larger batch and can them using the hotwater bath method.

The acid level is high enough to prevent spoilage as long as they are processed correctly.

Edited July 20, 2004 by andiesenji (log)

[ronnie_suburban]

Thanks Andie.

What kind of pickling spice do you use? I picked-up a really nice, pre-made blend at The Spice House but I know that some picklers make their own blends.

=R=

[andiesenji]

Thanks Andie.

What kind of pickling spice do you use? I picked-up a really nice, pre-made blend at The Spice House but I know that some picklers make their own blends.

=R=

Your blend is probably as good, if not better than the one I use. I often cook it in the microwave and taste and add to it if I want a bit more "spark".

Actually I buy a big bag of the basic stuff at Smart & Final.

Then I add to it, broken pieces of cinnamon, star anise, fennel seed, celery seed, sometimes black caraway (sweeter than the regular caraway), sometimes ginger, dried lemon peel or orange peel. Rarer still I may toss in some black cardamom.

The regular mixes that combine

coriander

whole cloves

mustard seed

black peppercorns

whole allspice

bay leaves

dried peppers

celery seed

is a good base.

If I want an oniony flavor in the pickling liquid itself, I add some dried shallots. I grow a lot of shallots and drying them really concentrates the flavor. The same holds true with garlic.

I much prefer the black and brown mustard to the yellow, mainly because I grow more of it.

Occasionally I add fenugreek seeds to a batch, makes an interesting flavor change.

I love to experiment.

[evilhomer]

^^that's my base pickling spice too with the addition of dill. I make my own though - it's cheaper and you can control the quantites much better (i like lots of celery seed, not too much cloves/allspice typically)

to that little bits get added for various recipes ie. beets get caraway, cukes get white pepper and fresh dill crowns, green tomatoes get horseradish. Most 'meatier' pickles i use a good splash of cider vinegar in with the regular vinegar too.

I'm going to the farmers market this afternoon with the express purpose of finding something to pickle (probably the last asparagus which i make unreasonably spicy)

[McDuff]

I went to the library today and got The Joy of Pickling. She doesn't really clarify the pickling salt issue for me. Says to use white sea salt if you can't find pickling salt. I wonder if anyone has subbed kosher salt? In the past when I've made pickles, I used kosher, but other than refrigerator bread and butter pickles, I've never made a pickle I thought was fabulous. Would like to try some fermented pickles this time around.

[andiesenji]

I went to the library today and got The Joy of Pickling. She doesn't really clarify the pickling salt issue for me. Says to use white sea salt if you can't find pickling salt. I wonder if anyone has subbed kosher salt? In the past when I've made pickles, I used kosher, but other than refrigerator bread and butter pickles, I've never made a pickle I thought was fabulous. Would like to try some fermented pickles this time around.

She does mention kosher salt, she says to use more because it weighs less because of the crystalline structure.

[ronnie_suburban]

Thanks for the comments on the pickling spice. I just don't have enough experience at this point to determine whether or not I like the blend I bought. Clearly, some additional field research is needed and on that note, I'm pickling, everything in sight, just as fast as I can.

=R=

[tryska]

the orignator of this thread never did come back to clarify, did they?

[andiesenji]

Last night and this morning I made plum butter from the last of the Isabella plums. (These are a plum with nearly black skin when fully ripe but with a rose pink flesh, an heirloom variety that does not travel well and ripens after picking. They are picked when they are a ruby red, then allowed to ripen on a tray until the skins are a deep purple, almost black.)

These have an intense flavor and I sweetened them with Splenda. After putting the cooked pulp through a food mill to remove the skins, which give the finished product a lovely color, I added some of the strained bread and butter pickle syrup that I made up for pickling last weekend.

This little piquant flavor addition did wonders for the flavor of the plum butter.

It also makes a great flavor enhancer for peach butter, often rather 'blah' to my taste.

[tryska]

hmm...what an interesting idea.

you should put that in the the 2 tastes thread.

[McDuff]

I just noticed in the jar of dill pickles I have fermenting that the garlic cloves are starting to get a bluish tinge. I have a saucer right side up on top of the grape leaves and cut a cork from a wine bottle that fits into the recessed knob on the lid of this jar so that when I put the top on, the cork pushes the saucer into the brine and keeps things submerged. It also sort of self-skims the whitish yeast that has started to collect on top. I started these a week ago Friday. But I don't know about the bluish garlic. Is it no good? Should I take it out? I also started some sauerkraut and boy is that bubbling away. It's kind of warm and muggy here in eastern MA, so I have this stuff in the cellar where it's a little cooler.

[andiesenji]

vinegar will often turn garlic blue. The way to avoid this is to slightly roast or blanch the garlic before it goes into the vinegar or brine.

You can read the explanation here.

Other than being a bit unattractive, it is not a problem.

Because of the danger of botulism in cold-infused oils, it is considered safer to soak the garlic in vinegar for a day prior to putting it into the oil. Naturally this often turns it blue so the garlic has to be removed prior to bottling it.

I get around this by roasting a lot of garlic cloves in a pot of oil then jarring the oil and adding a dipper-full of cloves to each jar. Looks good and tastes wonderful.

For pickles I blanch the cloves in boiling water for about a minute or so (depending on the size of the cloves, larger ones need a bit more time), then plunge into ice water, I never have a problem with them turning blue.

[McDuff]

Thank you for that explanation. I've always been squeamish about adding raw garlic cloves to anything that's going to sit around. The Joy of Pickling says that one can ferment cucumbers at up to 80 degrees. It's hotter than that right now, so as I mentioned, I moved the jar into the cellar. It all of a sudden started developing this white scum, it wasn't there from the first day. The jar was picture perfect the first couple of days, but as stuff is starting to happen, it's getting murky. Smells like pickles though.

I also made the bread and butter pickles from that book, and since the type is so damn small, realized I added 1/4 cup sugar instead of 1/2. She says she doesn't like a cloying pickle and I would definitely not describe these as overly sweet. I already cracked open a jar because I made the Levy rye the other day and went out and got pastrami, swiss, sauerkraut and russian dressing and made a sandwich out of all that for three nights running, with the pickles on the side, and one night, oven roasted french fries.

[Rachel Perlow]

I thought I'd revive this thread as I've been making (cucumber) pickles the past week. My cucumber plants are thriving -- one of them looked like a nuclear mutant it was growing so fast in the beginning. Anyway, I got tired of eating fresh cucumbers for breakfast after the first couple of weeks, so I started picking them smaller and made some pickles. BTW, I planted two varieties, neither of which are Kirby, you just pick them when they are small (3-5 inches) to pickle them. Frankly, they are good that small fresh too.

I just used a basic garlic dill pickle recipe I found on the web. They fermented much faster than I expected (they're in the cabinet over the fridge, so it's probably a little warm in there) and it never produced much scum either. They were at least half-sours by the fourth day, so I took them out of the crock* and packed them in quart sized plastic containers and put them in the fridge. I got two quarts out of the first batch and I imediately started a second. I used the remainder of the brine from the first batch, but added more salt, pickling spice and water to cover. I think I'll get at least three quarts out of this next batch.

I'm curious, does anyone know which ingredient really starts the fermenting process? I think it is the garlic, so am wondering if you blanch the garlic in water, roast it, or soak in vinegar (I used no vinegar in my brine), wouldn't that afftec the fermenting process? Or, are those methods for the non-fermenting type of pickle?

* The crock I used is a large FoodSaver cannister, with one of the next size smaller container's lids. This keeps the cukes down in the brine, but it has a small hole in the center (I took the vacuum sealer cap off) to allows the bubbles to escape.

[MarkinHouston]

I have been pickling hot garlic dills for over twenty years; here's the recipe I've worked with during that time. You could reduce the amount of garlic or peppers, but I am more likely to add a few extra!

Thrills from the Hills Dills

For ten to twelve quarts of pickles:

1 peck or so of small pickling cucumbers

Brine:

1 gallon water

1/2 gallon white distilled vinegar

1 & 1/3 cup pickling/canning salt

40 peeled garlic cloves

40 Serrano peppers, de-stemmed

1 large bunch of fresh dill weed

Thoroughly wash cucumbers and cull out

any with soft spots (or cut them out)

Combine brine ingredients in a non-reactive

pot and bring to a boil.

In the bottom of each of ten sterilized jars,

place 4 garlic cloves, four Serrano peppers

and 1 seed-head of dill. Pack jars with

cucumbers and pour boiling brine over, leaving

1/2" head space. Seal jars with lids and

rings, and then submerge in a boiling water

bath for 15 minutes. Allow pickles to

mellow for about 1 month before eating.