In a Pickle
July 2, 2011 § 3 Comments
I was in a sour mood the other day. So, I made pickles.
I’ve been wanting to make pickles for a year or so, ever since I had an excess of small beets produced in our garden last year. I even kept the beets in a sealed bag in the fridge for several months, thinking I’d make pickled beets at some point. I didn’t. I searched for the just-right pickling recipe for so long, my beets eventually went bad.
And it’s not like I haven’t pickled anything before. I have. Pickled green cherry tomatoes. They were delicious. But still, there was something intimidating about the thought of making pickled beets.
I had had my eye on a Moosewood recipe for pickled red onions. I kept putting it off and putting it off. Then I spotted a recipe in Martha Stewart Living for pickled onions, radishes and snap peas – cocktail pickles. It got me thinking. Finally this week I decided to bite the bullet and pickle up some red onions.
I examined the Moosewood recipe – it called for brown sugar – and I examined the Martha recipe – white sugar. And then I dug out that old pickled green cherry tomato recipe – salt. I considered them all – and decided to go with this.
Jars:
Two jars of the one-pint jelly variety.
Ingredients:
1 cups cider vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tbs packed brown sugar
-Boil the above and let cool.
-In each jar place
– 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
-1/2 tsp black peppercorns
-1/2 tsp mustard seeds
-1 bay leaf
-1 garlic clove
-1 sneaky dried chili pepper optional
While I was boiling the liquid, I realized I didn’t have red onions. Digging through the hydrator drawers, I found an older head of red cabbage and a carrot. I shredded enough cabbage to lightly pack one jar, and julienned a carrot to fit into the other jar. I divided the vinegar liquid between the two jars, and it was enough to cover the veggies. I covered the jars with lids and tightened with the rings, and popped them into the fridge. A day later, I had a taste of the results. And I have to say, not bad.
The Dainty Dot 
My big plans for the day are to pickle things. Still haven’t quite nailed down what recipe I’m going to use, so thank you so much for this!
I just pickled some cukes and red onions using the same recipes but with kosher salt instead of brown sugar. And dill from the garden!
[…] -Pickled red onions, pickled myself! […]