Fresh Pickles

Until a few years ago, if you said “pickles” I thought only of preserved foods. We do a lot of canning in this household. Used to be strictly for economic reasons. Then it became a way of preserving the abundance of the gardens, fields, and woods.

The past few years we’ve been playing with fresh pickles---usually called “refrigerator” pickles. These are not processed. Rather, the foodstuff is mixed with an acid and flavorings, and stored directly in the fridge. They’re designed to be consumed relatively quickly. Most authorities, in fact, claim that they won’t keep more than a maximum of two months (often less than that is specified); even though they float in an acid, and are refrigerated.

Me, I wouldn’t know. They don’t last that long. We make them in relatively small batches, and eat them fairly quickly.

One such is actually an adaptation of an 18^th century side dish of pickled radishes. You read that right; radishes. Rarely heard of nowadays, in the 18^th century they pickled all sorts of vegetables and vegetable parts.

Sounds strange, I know. But that’s only because it’s unfamiliar. The reality is, even people who claim not to like radishes devour these. This recipe is adapted from one found in a ca. 1720 cookery manuscript, and can be found in our A Colonial Virginia Book of Cookery:

Pickled Radishes

2 dozen radishes

1 cup sugar

1 cup cider vinegar

1 tbls mustard seed

½ tsp celery seed

2 tsp dill weed

 

Stem radishes. Cut into roses if desired.

 

Mix all other ingredients in a saucepan. Heat until sugar dissolves and mixture is clear. Add radishes.

 

Let cool and store in fridge until ready to use, but let sit at least overnight so the radishes absorb the brine flavors.

 

Fresh pickle recipes can be found in unexpected places. Michael Symon is a big proponent of them, for instance, and in his Live To Cook  he provides what he called a “master pickling recipe.” The basic brine can be used with all sorts of veggies (he says using fennel, for instance, makes a great pickle to serve with fish), but he uses red onions as the example.

 

After making this the first time it quickly became a condiment for us, and we always have some on hand in the fridge.

 

Symon’s recipe uses a physically large volume of spices, and we found that following his directions the bulk of them merely sit on top of the onions. When you try spooning some out you initially get too many of the spices. So we’ve modified it slightly to account for that:

 

Master Pickling Recipe Using Red Onions

 

2 pounds red onions, sliced

White wine vinegar

Sugar

Kosher salt

2 tsp mustard seeds

1 tbls crushed red pepper flakes

2 tbls coriander seeds

2 tbls black peppercorns

4 garlic cloves, split in half

2 bay leaves

 

Pack the onions in two 1-quart jars and cover with water to come within ½ inch of the rim. Pour the water out into a measuring cup. Note the volume, pour off half the water, and replace it with vinegar. Add 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons salt for every 3 cups liquid.*

 

Pour the vinegar mixture into a nonreactive saucepan, add the mustard seeds and pepper flakes, coriander seeds, black peppercorns, garlic, and bay leaves, and bring to a boil over high heat. Allow the liquid to boil for two minutes, and then remove it from the heat.

 

Strain the solids out of the brine. Put 4 garlic halves, a bag leaf, and half the solids in each of the two quart jars. Fill with the sliced onions. Pour the hot brine into the jars to cover the onions and screw on the lids. Refrigerate for up to one month.

 

*Using wide mouth quart jars, this works out to two cups each of water and vinegar, and 2 2/3 tablespoons each of sugar and salt.

 

A variation on the pickled onion theme comes from Suvir Saran, who’s restaurant Devi was the first non-Japanese Asian restaurant to win a Michelin star. The recipe comes from his American Masala:

 

Ginger-Pickled Onions

Makes about 2 cups

 

1 large red onion, halves and sliced into thin wedges

1-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into thin sticks

½ Jalapeno, halved

Juice of 1 lemon

Rice vinegar

 

Place the onion, ginger, and jalapeno in a plastic container that has a tight-fitting lid. Add the lemon juice and enough vinegar to completely submerge the onion. Cover the container and refrigerate for at least one day before using. The pickles can be refrigerated for up to one week, but note that they will lose their crispness the longer the age.

 

Anyone else making fresh pickles?

I make what I suppose you would call a fresh pickle all the time, especially in summer.

Super simple as I just use a seasoned rice wine vinegar, usually the Marukan stuff (http://www.marukan-usa.com/sgrv.html), I just thinly slice cucumbers and pour the rice vinegar over them and let them soak for about an hour.  It makes an excellent side dish for hamburgers or pretty much any picnic type food item.  They do tend to get soggy if you let them go overnight, but that's because they're thin sliced. I suppose if you had bigger chunks, or even whole they would stay firm, but you'd need to let them pickle longer before they're ready.

I'd certainly call it a fresh pickle, Mike.

pitrow wrote: I make what I suppose you would call a fresh pickle all the time, especially in summer. Super simple as I just use a seasoned rice wine vinegar, usually the Marukan stuff (http://www.marukan-usa.com/sgrv.html), I just thinly slice cucumbers and pour the rice vinegar over them and let them soak for about an hour.  It makes an excellent side dish for hamburgers or pretty much any picnic type food item.  They do tend to get soggy if you let them go overnight, but that's because they're thin sliced. I suppose if you had bigger chunks, or even whole they would stay firm, but you'd need to let them pickle longer before they're ready.

Short pickled vegetables have become very fashionable around here, all the more in upscale restaurants. I haven't done it yet but it seems easy enough and there are so many variations on the pickling medium. I have seen mixes including and/or white wine, vinegar, water, lemon, salt, sugar, spices, herbs. Sometimes the pickling solution is heated up and cooled down again before the pickling starts, but as far as I can guess how strong (read acidic) the medium has to be, I would say that you have to simply taste it. I've seen chefs tasting a tbsp of that stuff before using it, but I have no idea how far they take the acidity. Seen by their faces, it's probably quite low acidic! Most of the time I have seen pickling done on all kinds of root vegetables, but also on fish, more specifically mackerel, seems fresh mackerel is perfectly fit for this kind of very short -let's call it instantaneous- pickling too. In most cases the pickling takes no more than 30 minutes for vegetables ànd mackerel. Pickling red onion was a bit problematic; they turned pink all over.

Some time ago, I watched french chef Raymond Blanc, living in the UK, preparing fresh cucumber, in fact pickling it with salt in a special way that I had never seen before. He made long slices on a mandoline, avoiding to use the core with the pips. Then the slices were simply lightly salted and put in the freezer for no longer than 20 minutes. After that they were rinsed under cold water; they thaw immediately doing that. The cucumber was used like that. I tried that out and I can say that this method gives you the crunchiest thinnest cucumber slices you ever ate!