Corduroy Orange

Not what I was aiming for, but pretty good for what they are

This summer, I was excited about canning. I had never canned anything before, but for a couple of years had let languish in my basement a pre-WW I era canner that my mother had cleared out of her basement and given to me. Finally, I decided to make it a goal to can some stuff for the winter.

I didn’t want to let my ambition to get ahead of my ability, though, so I opted for a couple of easy, high-acid projects: applesauce and pickles (especially when improperly canned, low-acid goods have a risk of botulism associated with them). I haven’t yet opened the applesauce (because I still have the overflow from my pre-canning project in the freezer that I’m trying to go through first), but on Christmas day, we tried a jar of my first pickles and I was pleasantly surprised—not because they were good (I expected that they would be), but because they were good despite turning out much differently than I expected.

Until now, my rule has been that I like dill pickles, not sweet pickles. Thus, I tried to make a batch of spicy dill pickles by incorporating some hot peppers from my garden in the pickling liquid. I probably would have been right on, except that every recipe I consulted included some amount of sugar in it. Thus, when I concocted my own pickling brine recipe based on a survey of others’, I included a bit of sugar in it, along with a fair bit of fresh dill and my hot peppers. The result: some darned spicy bread-and-butter pickles.

The first bite was sweet, and I looked quizzically at my pickle; quite honestly, I was a bit disappointed. Then, the spice crept up from the back of my tongue and played a predominant role in each bite thereafter. Next summer, I’ll probably eliminate or greatly reduce the amount of sugar I include and see how the results turn out; for now, I’m expanding my pickle horizons and realizing that just because a pickle isn’t dilly doesn’t mean that it should be snubbed without a taste.

Corduroy Orange Pickles, Version 1.0

Soak fresh cucumbers overnight in a brine consisting of:

2 gallons water
1 1/2 cups kosher salt

Saute a generous pinch of crushed red pepper flakes in a little bit of oil. Deglaze with

6 cups vinegar
9 cups water

Stir into the liquid:

3/4 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar

and bring the concoction to a boil.

Meanwhile, sterilize your canning jars according to the manufacturer’s directions. Pack whole cucumbers, small hot peppers, and fresh dill into the jars and pour boiling pickling brine over them, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Put the lids on the jars according to the manufacturer’s directions and process in a boiling water bath for twenty minutes. Let cool and check the seals before storing. Store in brine for at least 3-4 months before enjoying.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 28th, 2006 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Recipes, Tastings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.