Young Cucumbers, to Pickle
Ingredients
Directions
Salt and sit
Spread young gherkins on dishes and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
Let them sit for a week.
Pickle and colour
Drain the gherkins and place them in a jar.
Pour boiling vinegar over them.
Set the jar near the fire and cover with vine leaves.
If the gherkins are not a good green color, pour the vinegar into another jar, heat it until boiling, and pour it over the gherkins again, covering with fresh leaves.
Repeat this process until the gherkins reach the desired color.
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
- Young gherkins
- Form the main body of the pickle; their firm flesh holds its crunch through brining and pickling.
- Coarse sea salt
- Draws water out of the gherkins over a week, firming them and preparing them to take up vinegar.
- Boiling vinegar
- Acidity that preserves the gherkins and gives the pickle its sharp, sour flavour.
- Vine leaves
- Covering the jar while warm helps hold heat and keep the gherkins submerged and evenly coloured.
The step that matters
Re-heating and re-pouring the vinegar for colour. Green colour in pickles is fragile; overheating or long heat can turn it olive-brown, and each repeat adds more heat exposure, so the colour should be checked after each pour rather than assumed.
“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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