Pickling tales
The last couple weeks have seen a few new pickling projects. First was a lovely melange of beets, carrots, turnips and red cabbage, with caraway and mustard seeds. The cabbage threw a lot of water and I didn't need to add any for the brine. Amazing. And after 10 days, it's still young in its fermentation process, but soooo tasty that it's almost gone already! I served it up as a side last night for our Sunday family dinner, and was amazed at how much everyone loved it. I even drank the brine at the bottom of the bowl. Mmmm! And look at that amazing color!
Then, our first time with whole cukes. These were persian cukes, not ideal I think because their peels are thinner than "pickling cucumbers," the kind they use for dill pickles at the deli. Also I'd noticed these cukes were a little bitter. But we forged ahead, adding dill weed and garlic that we'd brined ages ago using leftover brine from a batch of sauerkraut. We added the last grape leaves from our little vine out front, which are said to help keep the pickles crisp. Made a brine using Sandor's suggested ratio, which he said was very salty. 3 days and these puppies were already half sour, but almost unbearably salty. I guess Sandor wasn't kidding. Also on my mind is that we're using kosher salt, which is said to require 1.5 times more than fine grain salt for equal measurements. I wonder if that's accurate. Other things have turned out just fine using that conversion, so I dunno. At any rate, We're trying a new batch now, using regular pickling cukes and a less salty brine solution. It's an experiment.
Here's a pic of the persian cukes after a day. They'd already lost quite a lot of their bright color.
Last night I prepped 6.5 pounds of brussels sprouts to make in the crock. I've been curious to try this for a while now. We all love this vegetable, which alfonsox refers to as "turtle heads." Seems like they're basically tiny cabbages, so I figured it'd be similar to sauerkraut. I cut them in half instead of shredding them, wanting to preserve some of their structure, but wanting to give the salt easy access to the inside. Normally with shredded cabbage, as soon as you salt it the brine starts to rise. But not so with these brussels sprouts. I punched them down, and our dinner guests even had a go, but still no brine. I'm guessing it would have been different had I shredded them. We let it sit overnight with a gallon jug of water pressing down on it, but still, only minimal brine. So today I made a brine solution (one cup water to 1.5 T kosher salt), and ended up needing to add 7 cups!!! The salt really brought out the lovely green color -- I'm sure that will fade in a couple days. I added lemon peel to these, as well as caraway seeds, black pepper and yellow mustard seeds.
Then, our first time with whole cukes. These were persian cukes, not ideal I think because their peels are thinner than "pickling cucumbers," the kind they use for dill pickles at the deli. Also I'd noticed these cukes were a little bitter. But we forged ahead, adding dill weed and garlic that we'd brined ages ago using leftover brine from a batch of sauerkraut. We added the last grape leaves from our little vine out front, which are said to help keep the pickles crisp. Made a brine using Sandor's suggested ratio, which he said was very salty. 3 days and these puppies were already half sour, but almost unbearably salty. I guess Sandor wasn't kidding. Also on my mind is that we're using kosher salt, which is said to require 1.5 times more than fine grain salt for equal measurements. I wonder if that's accurate. Other things have turned out just fine using that conversion, so I dunno. At any rate, We're trying a new batch now, using regular pickling cukes and a less salty brine solution. It's an experiment.
Here's a pic of the persian cukes after a day. They'd already lost quite a lot of their bright color.
Last night I prepped 6.5 pounds of brussels sprouts to make in the crock. I've been curious to try this for a while now. We all love this vegetable, which alfonsox refers to as "turtle heads." Seems like they're basically tiny cabbages, so I figured it'd be similar to sauerkraut. I cut them in half instead of shredding them, wanting to preserve some of their structure, but wanting to give the salt easy access to the inside. Normally with shredded cabbage, as soon as you salt it the brine starts to rise. But not so with these brussels sprouts. I punched them down, and our dinner guests even had a go, but still no brine. I'm guessing it would have been different had I shredded them. We let it sit overnight with a gallon jug of water pressing down on it, but still, only minimal brine. So today I made a brine solution (one cup water to 1.5 T kosher salt), and ended up needing to add 7 cups!!! The salt really brought out the lovely green color -- I'm sure that will fade in a couple days. I added lemon peel to these, as well as caraway seeds, black pepper and yellow mustard seeds.