If you love pickles, but don’t love the crazy amounts of sodium you get in commercial pickles, try these.
Or if you just have an abundance of cucumbers and you don’t know what else to do with them–these will take care of a couple of pounds.
They’re not the long-storage kind, requiring a heavy pot of boiling water, or a giant supply of jars, or all afternoon in the afternoon. The sum total of your energy/time input is whatever it takes you to peel and slice the cucumbers.
I got the recipe in a cooking class I took years ago, from a local woman, Sheri Castle, who is really sort of my idol in the kitchen. She can put together a meal that will knock your socks off, on a stage, all the while making the audience laugh–and learn–and she can do it without notes. I’ve made only 3 small changes to Sheri’s recipe: I used my own pickling spice, I used 1/2 of a red onion (because it’s what I had), and I boiled the brine in the microwave, instead of on the stove top (because I was on a kitchen binge, and all my saucepans were dirty).
Lee will be happy–he’s the pickle guy.
2 pounds small cucumbers, trimmed, peeled, and sliced
1 to 2 bunches spring onions, peeled and sliced into rings
12 ounces of vinegar (cider, white, rice, or seasoned rice–for the seasoned, cut the amount of sugar in half)
1/4 cup sugar
2 t. mixed pickling spices (optional)
1 t. salt
1/2 t. ground black pepperPlace the cucumbers and onions in a glass bowl or jar
Bring the rest of the ingredients to a boil, and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the cucumbers and onions.
Let sit for at least 15 minutes for the flavors to blend and develop.
Eat at once, or refrigerate until chilled.Storage note: You can store the cucumbers and onions in the fridge for several days. However, the brine keeps for weeks, so you can continue to add fresh cucumbers and onions to the same brine.