Tickle My Pickle: The Lazy Impatient Pickling Fool

Once a master pickler tried to teach me how to make pickles. Brining, canning, sterilizing, waiting for weeks until it was ready. Way too much work for my impatient stomach, I royally messed it up by prematurely opening the jar, which ultimately left me with a flaccid dill. I needed instant pickle gratification. I set off on quick pickling kick: cucumbers, onions, beets, eggplant, red peppers and jalapeños.

These days I’m sorta obsessed with pickling, and pickled cucumbers were the most important thing for me to start with. Oh, how I miss that super flavorful, sweet, garlicky, spicy, vinegary kick with a whole lotta crunch. It’s the perfect addition to sandwiches, burgers, rice bowls, or pop ’em plain.

Bread and Butter Sweet Pickles

Ingredients:

– 2 kilos cucumbers (or however many will fit in your jar) (that’s what she said)
– 1 cup white vinegar
– thinly sliced onion
– 1/3 cup sugar
– 1/2 cup water
– 2 Tablespoon kosher salt
– 3 teaspoons mustard seed
– 2 teaspoons celery seed (get this at Casa Polti)
– 2 cloves garlic, cut in halves
– few pinches of turmeric for color

Toss the vinegar, sugar, salt, celery seed, mustard seed, water into a pan and bring to a boil. Taste it and make sure you are happy with the brine, adjust it if you aren’t.

Meanwhile, use a mandoline and slice those cukes up thin, next time I’ll use a crinkle blade to make them extra fancy.

I slice my cucumbers extra thin because I like it like that, perfect to shove a bunch into a grilled cheese sandwich.

Once the sugar dissolves turn the heat off, chuck the pickles in and mix around. You can also add the garlic and peppers. And the onions. The pickles will start off looking bright green.

Let them cool and watch as they begin to fade..

And ultimately turn yellow. Pour into a jar with a tight fitting lid and put in the fridge so they crunch up. Now, while it’s better to let them sit and let the flavors orgy around a bit, I have been known to eat right away.

FOR REGULAR QUICK PICKLES:

If you aren’t into the sweet bread and butter pickles, follow the same recipe as above, but here you will alter the ingredient ratios.

Ingredients:

• 2 kilos cucumbers (or however many will fit in your jar) (that’s what she said)
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1 cup water
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 3 Tablespoons kosher salt
• 3 teaspoons mustard seed
• 1 teaspoon celery seed
• 2 cloves garlic
• fresh dill
• peppercorns
• spicy pepper
• You can also add red or regular onions if you wish

Pickled Beets
Ever since Doug and Skeeter listened to The Beets I have been a major fan of this red-dye root. Ok, so maybe I totally messed up my kitchen counter with a beet juice massacre, but I think I made a legit pickled beet.

There’s something about a sliced beet that’s really attractive to look at, that bullseye multicolored ring is just hypnotizing. I semi followed this Momofuku beet recipe, a poor girl’s impatient version that did not include kombu, rice vinegar (white vinegar instead), and I waited less than 24 hours before I ducked my hand into that pink juiced jar.

Pickled Eggplant aka Berenjenas en Escabeche

Since I arrived to Arg I’ve always been a major proponent of berenjenas en escabeche, or pickled eggplant. It’s a great garlicky tart oily topping for a sandwich, on boring tostadas, or even to liven up a sad pizza porteña. I made a major eggplant pickling no-no and didn’t peel the skin. Blerg. While the taste was there, it didn’t come out slimy and sultry as I had hoped.

I did, however, store it in a jar made by Martha Stewart designs.

Some more pickling recipes that have worked wonders:

Pickled daikon via Serious Eats
Pickled jalapeños via SimplyRecipes
How to pickle anything via The Kitchn

A test to see how many people actually read until the end of a long tickling pickling post.

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