Here, we give you the very basics to get you started so that you can pickle away to your heart’s content! This is a quick pickle method, suitable for storing veggies for up to 1 month in the fridge. For longer term storage, you’d need a stronger brine and to prepare and sterilise your jars properly. We find this quick pickling method is very useful at this point in the year, when you may just have a few too many veggies from your final harvests, but when you know they’ll get used up pretty soon.
STEP 1: Make the Brine
Ingredients
750ml white vinegar (e.g: apple cider, white wine)
250ml water
2 tbsp sea salt (use sea salt, not table salt)
1 tbsp sugar
Put all the ingredients into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Once sugar has dissolved, remove from the heat and allow to cool thoroughly.
STEP 2: Prepare your Veggies
You can pickle more or less any vegetables you like – some are best cooked first, others are best blanched and others can be left raw. As a general rule, prepare it as you would want to eat it… e.g., boil beetroot until it’s cooked through, blanche beans, leave cucumber raw.
Cut the vegetables so that they are as you would like to eat them – for example, you might finely slice cabbage, top and tail beans, and leave beetroot whole. Bear in mind that you will be putting them into jars and you want to fit in as much as you can, so you could chop your veg to suit the height/width of the jar.
STEP 3: Fill the Jars
Use an airtight jar – a Kilner jar or equivalent would be perfect. Fill the jar with the vegetables leaving approx 1 cm from the top of the jar. Add a few sprigs of herbs and a few black peppercorns for flavour, or even a chilli, then completely cover with brine. Pop the lid down, seal, and leave for a day or two (to get the fermentation process going) before putting them in the fridge.
STEP 4: Use Within 1 Month
These pickles are for short-term storage only, so should be kept in the fridge and used within a month.
PERFECT FOR PICKLING:
- Red Onions, finely sliced, raw
- Beetroot, whole, cooked
- Cabbage, finely sliced, raw
- French/Runner Beans, blanched, whole or sliced
- Cucumber or Courgette, sliced lengthways or chopped into 2cm pieces, raw
- Globe Artichoke, hearts, cooked