Ready-to-eat pickle.

Anything that’s been pickled is guaranteed to reel me straight in hook, line and sinker. I have a true love for gherkins, pickled onions, pickled chillies, pickled eggs and banderills…the list is endless. So it came upon me one evening whilst eating crackers with cheddar and Branston pickle and a suggestion from my brother, that I felt it was time to bring my own meagre offering to the table. I cannot claim all the credit for this recipe, a certain Mr Norrington-Davies brought it to my attention in his cook book “just like mother used to make.” The method and pickling ingredients are the same, but I have played around with some of the ingredients to which I devoted an entire afternoon to taste and work out which veggies would most fit the bill, and which flavour combinations would work best. Of course if you have a fetish for carrots like Uncle Monty, then you can just use carrots as applies to any other veggie fetishes you may harbour…

The best thing was I was able to use up some of my own produce from the garden, the kohlrabi and radishes were a dead cert and although I did think about the carrots, they were far too small to warrant using. The trick to making the instant pickle is to chop all the ingredients as small as possible, perfect to put on top of crackers and eat along with curries, drop into soups or even have with a terrines. When I say ready-to-eat I mean it. Once this is cooled it is ready to go, but it certainly benefits from a couple of weeks maturing in the fridge. If you find yourself with a few less than fresh veggies in the back of the fridge rather than throw them, make yourself a pickle.

This recipe will make approximately 1 large jar.

Vegetables: (all to be diced finely)
• ½ cucumber
• 1 red onion
• ¼ celeriac bulb
• Handful of radishes
• 2 carrots
• 1 long sweet pepper
• 1 parsnip
• 2 kohl rabi (golf ball size)
• 50g salt
• 1 tbsp peppercorns

For the Pickling mix:
• 300ml white wine vinegar
• 200ml malt vinegar
• 250g caster sugar
• 1tpsp salt
• ¼ tsp turmeric or cumin
• 2 cloves
• 4 bay leaves
• ½ Scotch bonnet chilli finely chopped
• ½ tsp of coriander seeds

Method:
This really could not be easier…unless you got someone else to do it all for you…but then where’s the fun? First put all the pickling mix in a saucepan with 500ml of water and simmer until all the caster sugar has completely dissolved. Put all your finely diced veggies in a large bowl and pour the pickling mix over them so that they are completely covered.
Once the mixture is cooled, there you have it, pickle! Put it into your large jar and make sure the liquid covers the veggies just. Will keep up to 6-8 weeks in the fridge that is if you haven’t eaten it by then.

So simple and quick, well worth making and great for the summer. I would love to hear from any of you who take the time to have a go and tell me what you put in yours, or even your methods of pickling, other than drinking copious amounts of booze! As the summer draws to an end in the next couple of months my pickle production will turn into full on chutney-making, when I make the first batch, you’ll be the first to know…

Comments

[Jamie Briggs]

Please can you come and make this for me?