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Bread & Butter Pickles
By Betsy Richter | 7:43 amThe refrigerator pickle craze continues apace, spurred on by the rest of the empty wide-mouth pint jars sitting on the kitchen table mocking me…!
As per usual, I mashed a few different recipes together, and make a few substitutions (instead of garlic, I add chunks of walla walla onion.) And after stops at 3 different grocery stores in search of pickling spice, well – I did a quick Google search while in the last store, raided their bulk spice section (aided by a 20% off bulk spice sale – thank you, New Seasons!), and made my own.
Bread & Butter Refrigerator Pickles (makes 4 pints)
2 pounds pickling cucumbers
2 1/2 cups sugar (see note below)
1 cup distilled white vinegar (5% acidity
1 cup apple cider vinegar (same)
2 tablespoons salt
Pickling spice (see below if you need a recipe)
Dill weed – top blossoms
Thin slices of walla-walla onion, quartered (1/2 small onion)
Wash cucumbers with cold water. Trim ends & cut into 1/8th inch thick slices. Add 1 tsp pickling spice, 1/4 of onion slice, and healthy head of dill weed to bottom of each of 4 wide-mouth pint jars (or container of your choice.) Pack cucumber slices tightly in, adding another quarter slice of onion midway through.
Mix remaining ingredients in medium saucepan. Bring to boil on medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar and salt. Reduce heat to low, simmer 5 minutes.
Ladle hot mixture immediately over cucumbers, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Handling carefully (jars are hot!), cover with metal lids, screw on bands, and invert on cooling rack to cool.
Refrigerate pickles, shaking jar once a day for 3 to 5 days to redistribute seasonings and blend flavors. Store in refrigerator up to 2 months.
Pickling Spice
Here’s the recipe I used, with my own additions/substitutions:
2 Cinnamon Sticks, broken
1 TB. mustard seeds
2 TSP. black peppercorns
1 TSP. whole cloves
TSP. whole allspice
1 TSP. juniper berries
1 TSP. whole mace – crumbled (didn’t have whole, had to use powdered)
1 TSP. coriander seeds (didn’t have whole, had to use powdered)
1 TSP. dill seeds (didn’t use this; used the dill blossom instead)
1 TSP celery seeds (my addition)
1/2 TSP nutmeg, grated (my addition)
4 dried bay leaves
1 small piece dried ginger
I used my mini blender to pulverize the cinnamon sticks, dried ginger & mace/nutmeg/coriander together, then mixed with rest of ingredients in glass jar, crumbling bay leaves into the jar at the end. Add lid, shake vigorously, and use!
Side note: My snarky teen wants to know just why these are called bread & butter pickles. Also, he says they look disgusting in their jars lined up in the fridge and/or prevent him from seeing what other food might be in there for him to hoover 24/7. (I’m so sorry, kid…)
He didn’t much care for the pickles – but I liked them! I would make them a little bit less sweet next time around, though…perhaps cut the sugar back to 2 cups or maybe 1 1/2 cups.
I’d also make the pickles in one large Tupperware container next time & then ladle into jars after they marinate for 24 hours – there was significant cucumber shrinkage, so my once-full jars now look much less full; I’d be able to get more cucumber in per jar if I try it this way instead, I think (either that or cut the cucumbers thinner and use brute force to smash them in…!)
Topics: Chef Whims | 1 Comment »
August 11th, 2009 at 11:07 am
The dreaded cucumber shrinkage. I hate it when that happens…