PrintPickles and Pounds
I know I usually write about ice cream, but Ed's recent diet posts have inspired me to contribute something about pickles. To me, aside from the whole sodium content thing, they are the ultimate guilt-free snacking food: crunchy, juicy, and best eaten with your fingers. Most have between zero and twenty calories per serving, and with so many varieties—bread and butter, half-sour, and cute little cornichons to name just a few—you need not get bored with them. I've never understood why, when they are so delicious, pickles are primarily used as garnishes, tossed onto the rims of sandwich plates and buried beneath showers of potato chips. In my mind, a bowl of pickles is just as worthy of hors d'oeuvre status as a bowl of olives!
This past summer I began to experiment with making my own. The recipes I tried were all for simple refrigerator pickles, so there was no arduous canning process, and most were ready to be eaten within a day or two. Here is my favorite version, which is loosely based on a recipe by Alton Brown that I found on the Food Network website.
Photograph from YellowDog on Flickr
About the author: Lucy Baker is a graduate student in the writing program at Sarah Lawrence College. Before returning to school to pursue an MFA, she was an assistant cookbook editor at HarperCollins. She lives in Brooklyn and is currently obsessed with all things fennel.
Homemade Quick Pickles
Ingredients
1/2 a white onion, thinly sliced
2 hothouse cucumbers, sliced into thick rounds
4 garlic cloves, smashed
Handful chopped fresh dill
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups vinegar (can use a combination of white, red wine, cider, champagne, etc.)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon tumeric
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 teaspoon pickling spice
Procedure
Put the onion slices, cucumber slices, garlic, and dill in a large mason jar. Combine the remaining ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 4 minutes. Pour the liquid over the cucumbers, filling the jar all the way to the top. Screw the lid on tightly, give the jar a good shake, and refrigerate. Pickles are ready the next day.
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5 Comments:
I would like to know how to make half sours. I can't get them in my part of the country.
susanl at 3:09PM on 01/22/08
Lucy - how "strong" are these? I know that AB's "kinda sorta sours" from the show were a bit lacking in the vinegar department.
(I, too, love pickling. Especially when I can get fresh dill weed with the little yellow flowers on the end, very pungent.)
jd7979 at 3:37PM on 01/22/08
@jd7979 - I make pretty much the same pickles, only with 3 cups (white) vinegar to 2 cups water, and let it cool a bit before pouring it over the cukes. It's very strong after 3 torturous days of waiting.
Lauren Krueger at 4:02PM on 01/22/08
Well, well, well. That's a picture from my flickr account. Those are my pickles! But that's not my recipe.
drfabulous at 10:05PM on 01/25/08
Hi Lucy and Pickle Gang...
I hate to task this silly question, but I don't think I understand what "Hot House" cucumbers are... Let me take a stab.
Are they pickling cucumbers (small, sweet tasting, no problem ever with the seeds but they have few seeds).
Are they English cucumbers which I think may be called Hot House cucumbers? These are very long, you can eat the skin and the seeds which never make you ill either. They're about $2.00 each, and are very long - equalling about two regular cucumbers with waxed skin you can't eat).
I'd love to try your recipe, I love pickles too and I'd like to try making my own "refrigerator" types. Like one of the posters above, I love NY Deli 1/2 sour pickles and can hardly find then here in Dallas.
Thanks for the clarification.
gdlemaire at 1:59AM on 01/29/08