To Pickle Barberries and Siberian Crabs
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the fruit
Harvest barberries and Siberian crabs before they are very ripe.
Cut half the length of the stalks from the crabs and remove any discolored berries from the barberries.
Brine and store
Place the fruits in stone jars and cover them with boiled and cooled brine made from 6 ounces of salt and a morsel of alum per quart of water.
Check the jars occasionally during winter.
Remove any scum or mold and replace the brine if necessary.
Make the alum liquid
Boil alum with enough vinegar to cover the fruits and a few white peppercorns.
Strain the mixture, let it cool, and pour the cooled liquid over the fruits.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Barberries
- Their tartness is the main flavour of the pickle and holds up to the brine.
- Siberian crabs
- Provide the fruit body and tartness that the brine preserves and flavours.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the fruit and inhibits spoilage microbes in the brine.
- Alum
- Helps the fruit stay firm and crisp during pickling.
The step that matters
Cooling the brine before adding the fruit. Hot brine would soften the fruit and can start cooking it, so the liquid must be fully cooled before it is poured over the fruits.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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