My pickle escapades have been rather sour to put it . . . salty. They either been waaaay to vinegar/salty (salty even for me . . . and salt’s my middle name) or way to dill-y. I wouldn’t've minded it so much if the pickles were crunchy but the problem is they are rather soft. I do like salty vinegar pickles but I really like deli pickles ’cause they have a subtle salty flavor but they are so mild, delicate and just. . . augh. I don’t know how they do it but they are soooo good! If you know the name or recipie to that kind of pickle, please, leave a comment and let me know how you make it!
As you can tell, I’ve gotten nowhere near that caliber of pickle. Not even close. One reason is in previous years, I’ve grown enough pickles at once to make 5 jars at once so I never got to really experiment and since I’d just make one batch a year, I didn’t want to risk it.
Well, this time, The pickles have been growing a bit different. Somehow, when just enough pickles to fill one jar were ready to be picked, some more (to fill another 1 jar) were growing. If I waited for those pickles to grow, the ones that were ready would be too old so I had to pick ‘em now. . . which means, I’d be making a jar of pickles every few days. . . which means, I could do some experimenting!
So, with one jar, I tried using less vineger and more water. Plus, I added garlic. I filled the jars with real young, small cucumbers and poured the brine over.
Next batch, I did the about the same thing. The only difference was I had bigger pickles so I sliced ‘em into spears and used onion and well as garlic.
Now, I’m gonna try making crisp-as-ice pickles (to try to make ‘em crispy) by covering the pickles in ice. I’ll make the brine in four hours when they’ve sufficiently chilled.
If you know any good crispy dill pickle (that are sure to make a big crunch) recipies, leave a comment and share your delicious culinary canning secrets!
If you want to invest in a book I would suggest The Joy of Pickling. I try 4 or 5 new recipies a year and they have all been great. The last oen was a quick Japanese pickle made with soy sauce, kelp and some jalapeno peppers! It was done in a day and was great as a garnish on a salad. It was salty, but excellent. Here is the recipe:
1. Cut off the ends and half the cucumbers lengthwise and cut into 1/2 inch think pieces. I skin the cucumber because mine this year have tended to be bitter… Toss with salt– 1 tea spoon to 1 pound cucumbers. Let stand for an hour.
2. Rinse very well and drain. Mix with 1 fresh jalapeno cut into rings and 1/2 a cup of soy sauce and 1 2-inch piece of dried kombu cut with scissors into very thin strips. The recipe says to let stand 6-10 hours then refridgerate. I found they were too salty after 3 hours so I drained off the soy sauce and called it good.
They will last in the fridge for quite a while. To be honest I didn’t use kombu– we had some dried sea weed in the pantry and I opted to just use that rather than making a special trip to the store. It worked fine.
culley (Abbott’s Family Band fan)
Thanks Culley! I’ll try that out.
Once in Vegas, had lunch at a place (maybe the ’stage door deli’?) where instead of a bread basket, they brought us an appetizer of a bucket of pickles-maybe 10 different kinds-and each one worse than the last! Lord, they were horrible! reminded me of the Andy Griffith episode where Aunt B makes such nasty pickles-shudder-almost turned me off pickles for good…
buddy
That’s my favorite Andy Griffith episode. Coincidentally, that very episode is what inspired me to make pickles! (since I had been thinking about making pickles for a while but that episode was the final push I needed)
Hiya Kyle!
It’s been a long time since I visited your family’s site. Great to see you have a blog!
As for recipes, try checking out the various online recipe sites. I mostly use AllRecipes.com. They seem to only have one actual dill pickle recipe though, the rest seem to be recipes for other things that use dill or dill pickles in them.
Keep on pickin’ and strummin’!
HH