You can pickle just about anything

Deb Terrill   –   Daily Journal

What image comes to mind when you hear someone is canning pickles? Do you see someone standing over steaming kettles, hair tied up in a scarf, mopping her sweaty brow? Do you see rows of dusty canning jars on a basement shelf and bushels of cucumbers … armloads of dill and gallons of vinegar? Yeah, me too.

I grew up in a home where pickling was not just a once-per-year proposition, but an almost weekly event. Yes, there were the two-day sessions in late summer, when the onslaught of cukes from the garden had to be dispatched, but cucumbers were just the tip of the iceberg.

Grandma would pickle anything that stood still long enough to be drowned in vinegar. Pig’s feet, boiled eggs, cabbage and onions joined the ranks of food that stood in glass jars or crocks in our refrigerator.

Most of her recipes were standard, big batch recipes from Ball or Mason Jar companies, and not dramatically different from those used today. But I guess I wasn’t paying close attention because she also made small batches, presumably from her own calculations. Her pickled pig’s feet, for example; I never saw her look that up in any cookbook or use a recipe card from her tin recipe box, and she just made one big jar.

No, Grandma just instinctively knew what would work and brought salt, vinegar and water to a boil, then poured it over a big jar of boiled ham hocks and dill. Her pickled eggs were bright magenta red, which involved the use of beet juice. I always wished I liked eggs because those were so very pretty.

We never pickled green beans, cauliflower, peppers or green tomatoes, but they often appeared on pot luck tables at church and in the shops of the nearby Amish communities. But Grandma did like to make a batch of watermelon pickles each summer. These were special and put away for Christmas. I love watermelon pickles and dilled green beans as well, so I figured out a way to make myself a single jar. My watermelon pickles are a crunchier, brighter version but still infused with flavors of clove, cinnamon, anise and ginger.

I recently found a small batch recipe for dill pickles that worked well enough, but still made four jars. I wanted a recipe that I could use to make one jar. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I like to make use of even one cucumber, or a big handful of green beans. The second is that I hate hot water baths and the rigamarole of canning, so I wanted one jar, to refrigerate and enjoy within a couple of weeks.

This recipe makes one full pint, when the vegetables are tightly packed. You can double it to make a quart jar. Feel free to use any kind of jar as well. Because you won’t be processing the jar, it can be decorative.

The vinegar used in traditional canning needs to be high acidity, 5 percent or more, in order to prevent spoilage. But in this one jar, unprocessed quick pickling method, you can use any vinegar, even those as low in acidity as rice wine vinegar. I use mostly rice vinegar because it has a nice mellow taste and doesn’t bite quite like white and cider vinegar.

There are a couple of things you might want to keep in mind. Red food, such as red onion, red cabbage, radishes and beets will turn the liquid pink. Also, it is probably cheaper to buy whole pickling spices in a mix, rather than buy the bay leaf, peppercorns, dill coriander, mustard seeds, garlic, cumin and fennel separately. And finally, use them up! Although the watermelon pickles might need a week or so to be their best, quick pickles are best eaten on days two through five before they get too soft.

FRESH, CRUNCHY WATERMELON PICKLES

Watermelon rind from ¼ of a watermelon

½ cup sugar

¼ cup vinegar

¼ cup water

1 teaspoon pickling spices

1 cinnamon stick

4 cloves

1 cardamom pod

1 star anise

1 bay leaf

1 slice fresh ginger

Trim the rind, cutting it into chunks with some pink flesh, and slicing off the green outer skin. Combine the remaining ingredients in a saucepan and bring it to a simmer. Turn off the heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Let the spices steep in the warm syrup for an hour or so. Remove the cinnamon stick, cloves, bay leaf and star anise and add them to the jar as you fill it with watermelon chunks. Pack the jar tightly. Bring the syrup back up to a boil and pour the hot syrup, with the remaining spices in it, over the watermelon chunks in the jar. Seal and refrigerate when cool. Ready to eat in about a week.

QUICK PICKLES

½ cup rice vinegar

¼ cup water

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt (preferably kosher or un-iodized sea salt)

2 teaspoons pickling spices

4 baby cucumbers

1 small hot pepper, split (optional)

Heat the vinegar, water, sugar, salt and spices in a saucepan just until it begins to simmer and the sugar is dissolved. Toss the sliced cucumbers and the hot liquid in a bowl and let them cool, turning occasionally to keep the cucumbers all coated. Chill and serve.

Dill Beans Option: Use the same recipe, but blanch the beans for one minute in boiling water and add fresh dill to the jar.

PICKLED BEETS

2 medium to large beets

¼ cup white sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

½ cup red wine vinegar

Scant ½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon whole cloves

1 teaspoon whole allspice berries

Wrap the beets in foil and roast them, in the oven or on the grill, until just tender, not soft. A knife should meet a little resistance when pushed into the beet. Cool, peel and chop the beets into chunks and pack them into a pint jar with the spices. Heat the sugars, vinegar and salt, stirring to dissolve the sugar, and let it come to a slow boil. Pour it hot over the beets in the jar. Seal with a lid and refrigerate after cooling. Keeps about 3 weeks.