By: Amanda LeeAnn

Elite Daily 

Photo by : Doritos Canada

Pickle- flavored food is taking over. Try these pickled flavored Doritos

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: Pickles are taking over. It seems like there’s a new pickle-flavored food being discovered every day, and I’m definitely not complaining. I’m a total pickle person who welcomes the green-tinted products with open arms. That’s why I was overjoyed to find out that Doritos’ Intense Pickle tortilla chips are available. You read that correctly: Pickle-flavored Doritos actually exist, and I need to acquire a bag immediately.

Of course, there’s one obstacle that I’ll have to face in order to get a bag of the chips. Apparently, Doritos’ Intense Pickle tortillas live in Canada, and I do not. That means I’ll have to grab my passport and travel north in pursuit of the pickle-flavored snack. It’ll be a trek, but it’ll be worth it.
In all seriousness, it’ll be tough to grab a bag of pickle-flavored Doritos if you aren’t living in Canada, but that doesn’t mean you have to plan a Canadian vacation in order to try some. According to Bustle, you can buy a bag of Doritos’ Intense Pickle tortilla chips on Amazon through a third-party seller called Canadian Sweets Treats and other Specialties. The bag is $15.99, which is totally worth it.

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: Pickles are taking over. It seems like there’s a new pickle-flavored food being discovered every day, and I’m definitely not complaining. I’m a total pickle person who welcomes the green-tinted products with open arms. That’s why I was overjoyed to find out that Doritos’ Intense Pickle tortilla chips are available. You read that correctly: Pickle-flavored Doritos actually exist, and I need to acquire a bag immediately.

Of course, there’s one obstacle that I’ll have to face in order to get a bag of the chips. Apparently, Doritos’ Intense Pickle tortillas live in Canada, and I do not. That means I’ll have to grab my passport and travel north in pursuit of the pickle-flavored snack. It’ll be a trek, but it’ll be worth it.
In all seriousness, it’ll be tough to grab a bag of pickle-flavored Doritos if you aren’t living in Canada, but that doesn’t mean you have to plan a Canadian vacation in order to try some. According to Bustle, you can buy a bag of Doritos’ Intense Pickle tortilla chips on Amazon through a third-party seller called Canadian Sweets Treats and other Specialties. The bag is $15.99, which is totally worth it.

If you’re not willing to travel to a different country to try Doritos’ pickle creation, there are tons of other pickle-flavored goodies that don’t require a passport. Take this pickle-flavored soft serve ice cream, which is available at Lucky Pickle Dumpling Co. in New York City. The dessert is light green in color — and apparently, it’s delicious. I’d definitely travel to The Big Apple for a scoop.
There are also pickle-flavored goodies available that’ll give you a buzz, like this pickle-flavored beer. “Sam-Sam The Pickle Man” is a Spicy Dill Pickle Sour that was created by Down The Road Beer Co. for Boston’s Pickle Fair at the end of June. The beer was such a hit that the company began selling it at its brewery in Everett, Massachusetts after the event. However, customers loved the beer so much that the company already ran out of its supply. In other words, cross your fingers that the brewery brings its pickle-flavored brew back. If it does, I’m sure it’ll be super refreshing after devouring a bag of Doritos’ Intense Pickle chips.

Whether you’re snacking on chips, eating some ice cream, or sipping on a pint of beer, the new “pickle” flavor is sure to bring your tastebuds to the next level. Cheers to to hoping the U.S. will make pickle-flavored Doritos available soon.

By:Max Watman

Daily Beast 

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

The new trend is pickle flavor !

My wife and I were eating dill pickle-flavored pork rinds, when I broke the news to her that fast-food chain Sonic had just launched a new pickle-flavored slushie.
“I think,” she said sagely, “we’ve reached peak pickle.”
The next morning I was still chuckling to myself about her comment, when I watched Sunny Anderson and Jeff Mauro carve shot glasses out of pickles on the Food Network show, The Kitchen, and fill them with bourbon.

But it wasn’t that long ago when pickle-flavored anything seemed exotic and slightly scandalous.
In 2007, a scrappy little Brooklyn pickle brand called McClure’s was just getting rolling. At the time “we were roughly making 720 jars per day,” remembers Joe McClure, co-founder and COO of the company.

Some of those jars were being stored below the satirically named bar, the Bushwick Country Club. As a courtesy, the watering hole offered patrons plates of sliced pickles. According to lore, bartender Reggie Cunningham and some hell-raising Floridian got over their respective hangovers by chasing a shot of Old Crow Bourbon with a shot of pickle brine. And with that the now ubiquitous Pickle Back was suddenly born.

What strikes me most about the Pickle Back’s history and success is that most people used to squish up their faces at the concept, which only added to its appeal. Pickles? Ewww. Even John Roberts, the owner of the Bushwick Country Club, in an interview he filmed with Brooklyn Magazine, said that he thought the drink sounded disgusting.

My, how times have changed.

Utz has rippled chips in a flavor they call “fried dill pickle.” I like the heavy dill aromas, but there’s also a malty sweet ketchup thing going on—perhaps this is meant to be the fried part?—that is less appealing.

Farmhouse Culture makes a snack called a “Kraut Crisp.” This is a chip of sauerkraut and corn, and it comes in dill pickle-flavor. Eating them brings me right back to the whole “here have some carob, it’s just like chocolate” era, when things in health food stores tasted like, well, the health food store.

Turkey Hill Dill Pickle Pork Rinds are the usual around where I live in Virginia, and are very good. And a fistful of Southern Recipe Small Batch Spicy Dill Pork Rinds is what sparked this whole conversation, although, I think the company forgot to put “pickle” on the label, but they certainly taste like they are pickle flavored and they’re solid.
Chips that taste like pickles, however, are really just a natural extension of the classic salt-and-vinegar category. After all, pickle brine is salt and vinegar. Of course, the moment that folks put that together, pickle juice brined pork chops and fried chicken started showing up everywhere. Pickle juice gives a mysterious kick to the no-longer-a-secret sauce at Shake Shack. It is the je ne sais quoi in the delicious Bloody Mary at Mission District institution, Elixir, in San Francisco. At the Lucky Pickle Dumpling Company in Manhattan, they pull a pickle-flavored soft serve ice cream, studded with pickle chips.

Pickle juice, pickles, pickle flavoring: it’s suddenly everywhere and is unescapable.

At Sonic, the pickle juice slushie is, so far, a limited engagement. Scott Uehlein, Sonic’s vice president of product innovation and development, told me that his “culinary team took a deep dive in the Austin area trying different fountain and frozen products at snow cone stands and we saw tigers blood, Bahama mama and then pickle juice.” Interesting, in this context, this is the only pickle thing that I’ve found that leans away from dill pickles, and towards the sweeter bread-and-butter variety.

“Because our slush is sweet to start off with, we knew we had to go with something more sweet and sour to incorporate the flavor,” said Uehlein.
Response had been “extremely positive,” and I’m hoping that the flavor sticks around long enough for me to get another one and bring it home so I can drop in a shot of Jameson Irish Whiskey.
The biggest surprise came out of KFC. I did not expect much from their new “pickle flavored chicken.” One bite into this fried chicken doused in what seems to be a thickened pickle brine, but really, for all I know, was simply a jar of pickle chips tipped over my chicken, led to a hurricane of praise. It is fantastic. (Sadly, I couldn’t get any details about the process, since no one from the chain’s parent company, Yum! Brands, would return my messages.)

What, however, is going on? Why the explosion of pickle flavors? And while I like many of these products, no matter how gimmicky, I still can’t help but wish that people would leave the humble pickle alone. Or, at least, let it be a pickle again.

There is some hope: McClure’s is up to about 10,000 jars of their delicious pickles a day. Joe McClure told me “growing means more of everything: cash, employees, space, travel, and automation. It’s a never-ending ride. Maintaining our supply chain and relationships with our ingredient providers have been key to improved quality. Also, process is important that we’re making the product the same way each time.”

But he thinks we’re not actually at peak pickle with even more pickled-flavored items soon coming to the market. What’s going on? McClure chalks this up to an increasing interest in fermentation and its supposed related health benefits. (I credit this trend to author Sandor Katz and the popularity of his book, The Art of Fermentation.)
For McClure, it sounds like the future might be in the pickle itself. He didn’t say he’d be the one doing it, but he predicted that “we’ll also see pickles being delivered in packages outside of the standard glass jar and more in vehicles like foil snack packs for more convenience. That’s one area the pickle category has lacked: convenience.”
Pickle for pickle’s sake—that will be refreshing. Until we get there, pass me the pickle-flavored chips, fried chicken and slushies.

By:Catharine Kaufman

La Jolla Light 

Salmon and Gherkin Salad with Pickles  (Courtesy)

KITCHEN SHRINK:
Pickles of all manners are so beloved throughout the lands, they’ve been celebrated every May since 1948 during International Pickle Week, as diverse cultures pay tribute to their own version of the probiotic powerhouse. As summer swells into full bloom, it’s time to pick a peck of pickled pickles to enliven everything from burgers and brats to lobster rolls, assorted salads and ice cream (for pregnant cravings, of course) to suit sour, sweet, tangy and spicy palates.

Pickling is one of the oldest methods of food preservation tracing back 5,000 years when Mesopotamians soaked vegetables and fruits in a briny bath of salt, vinegar, herbs and spices until they nicely fermented. A few centuries later once the cucumber was cultivated in India and then pickled in the Tigris Valley its popularity soon trickled throughout ancient societies. In Egypt Cleopatra attributed her beauty and sex appeal to incorporating the sassy sour cuke into her diet.
From Julius Caesar to Christopher Columbus, both emperor and explorer believed that pickles had super powers to fortify soldiers and ward off scurvy in sailors. Eastern European Jews dialed up their bland diet with fermented cabbage, beets and cucumbers, sealed in barrels, and stored in cellars for use throughout the winter. During the wave of immigration to the United States settlers brought kosher dills to the Big Apple, along with the method of fermentation in wooden barrels using kosher salt, fresh dill, garlic and spices, where they were sold straight out of these vessels at Jewish delis.

Not all pickles are created equal depending on the species of cucumber, length of fermentation, type of brining vessel, amalgamation of pickling spices, (allspice, bay leaves, peppercorns, dill and mustard seeds, cardamom, juniper berries, crushed hot peppers), and international flavorings (soy sauce, curry, wasabi, sriracha, Cajun) used.
How a pickle is sliced is a matter of personal preference, whether lengthwise or crosswise (pickle chips), cut in waffles, spears, cubes, sticks, halves, diced, or eaten whole.
Twenty billion pickles are consumed every year in this country, the dill the most popular brined in a mixture of vinegar, salt, fresh dill or dill oil, and fermented until it becomes a lip-puckeringly sour, soggy, jade green delight. The half-sour dills are crisp, bright green pickles due to their short fermentation period in a vinegar-less brine with reduced salt, refrigerated throughout the process. Kosher-style dills are brined in kosher salt, along with plenty of dill and garlic, giving them a flavor oomph compared to traditional dills. The Polish-style dill is similar to the kosher dill, but is cured in a salty brine without vinegar, along with a load of garlic, while the German-style dill is pickled only in vinegar and lemon juice.

Southern parts have not only contributed the deep-fried pickle, but also the Kool-Aid pickle, known as the Koolickle. After soaking a dill in a bath of Kool-Aid and sugar for days, this sweet and sour pickle glows in electric hues of blue, red or orange. For a healthier riff try natural food coloring along with stevia or coconut sugar.
Sweet tooths might also indulge in tangy bread and butter pickles brined in a sugary vinegar base, usually pickled with onions and bell peppers, and cut into coins with ridged edges.
Diminutive “cornichons,” French for “gherkins” are either garden cucumbers harvested when they’re only a couple of inches long, or the naturally smaller West Indian or Burr species then fermented in a blend of wine vinegar and garlic, usually paired with pearl onions. These sweet, tangy petites make an ideal sandwich or cocktail garnish.

“Tsukemono,” which translates to “pickled things,” is the Japanese rendition with a blend of cucumbers, daikon radishes, turnips and plums pickled in miso paste, rice bran or sake creating colorful little snacking gems. While relish is a condiment of minced sweet pickles straight up or mixed with mustard to top sausages, dogs or burgers with an added crunch and flavor.
Cook’s Tip: Save pickle juice to add a zing to salad dressings, marinades, Dirty Martinis, or freeze in ice cube trays to use in other savory drinks.
The multi-purpose pickle can be wrapped in bacon, sliced on sandwiches, incorporated into sushi rolls, minced and tossed in chilled soups, Tzatziki dips, seafood cocktails, crab cakes, Cobb, egg, macaroni or redskin potato salads, or this delightful salmon mousse to stuff into hollows of heirloom tomatoes, avocado halves or spread on your favorite bread.