More About Fermented Pickles

I just love pickling. There was a time that pickling intimidated me. Thoughts of sterilized jars, boiling cauldrons, and mushy vegetables all threatened to foil my pickling attempts. But once i'd pickled once, there was no turning back.
I have pickled with the traditional vinegar/water brine, but have found my preference to lie in fermented pickling. I find vinegar pickles to be too, well: vinegary and overly tangy. Fermented pickles have a more balanced and complex flavor. Fermentation she says! Why, that's even more intimidating! Actually, it's the easiest and most natural thing in the world only requiring a few necessary tools. All you really need is a crock and something to hold the veggies down. A beautiful ceramic crock with perfectly sized plate would be awesome. I don't have either of those things. Instead my pickling crocks consist of various sized mason jars, tupperware lids, and vinegar bottles. I'm a girl who knows how to scrimcoach.  My kitchen is currently bubbling some pickled okra picked up by a local farmer, some jalapenos from my front garden and some green tomatoes that i'm tired of planting around. Fermentation is great: from kimchi to sour pickles, fermented foods are rich in enzymes and good bacterias that are great for you health, and the recipe is simple.

Cukes, cayenne and grape leaves make for zesty pickles with great crunch.

Sour Pickles

• Smallish pickling cucumbers (blossom end removed), okra, green tomatoes, hot peppers, or just about any vegetable that is ripe (excluding the tomatoes) and freshly harvested/ undamaged.
• Salty brine: 3 Tablespoons salt per quart of water
• Grape or horseradish leaves (the tannins in the leaves give your pickles that desirable crrrunch!)
• Garlic
• Pinch pickling spices or peppercorns
• Fresh dill or cilantro

Play with this recipe choosing the quantities you like (ie tons of garlic if you like garlic) and herbs you prefer. Add hot peppers for some zest and experiment with different veggies to pickle as they come in season (you can even do greens!) The method for all is the same:
Place a few grape leaves in the bottom of the crock followed by the peppercorns/pickling spices and garlic. Fill your crock up to half full with the vegetable of your choosing and place your plate (or plastic lid - no metal please) on top. Pour the mixed brine solution over it all and weight the plate down with a water filled bottle or clean rock. You can use about any receptacle for your crock - just no reactive metals. Cover the whole to-do with cheesecloth to keep the flies out and watch your pickles come alive within days. Day one you'll see brighter green. Day two the green will begin to soften. Day three there will be bubbles (watch out for an over flowing crock - never overfill with the brine solution, only be sure the veg is fully covered) and by the end of a week or two you'll have delicious sour pickles. Try and skim any mold that may develop, but don't worry as mold is normal. Don't throw out your brine when you're done pickling, either. You can keep it in the fridge and sip as a digestive tonic, or use to pickle hard boiled eggs or other veggies in the refrigerator. Store your pickles in the fridge to slow down fermentation. The pickled peppers will mellow their heat with time.

My first batch of pickles: i filled the crock too high and awoke to brine bubbling all over the kitchen counter!

My fermentation crock setup - total jerry rigged operation

What's your favorite way to pickle?

This post and others I've written can be found at Yard Farm Austin.

What To Do With a Texas Hill Country Surplus?

Thanks to my in laws for a wonderful weekend of river-play, and a bushel of fresh peaches and peppers from their gardens. I have plenty of hot peppers for our consumption growing in my own gardens, but as you can tell by reading most of my recipes - i like a little fire in every bite! I happily accepted Pops' pepper surplus and plan on storing about half and experimenting with the rest.

Storing peppers is quite easy and can be done in a variety of ways:

• Blend up into a hot sauce that will keep over a year (vinegar based)
• Pickle
• Dry (cayennes and other thin walled peppers are best for this, but jalapenos can be dried/smoked and stored in adobo sauce for chipotle peppers)
• Freeze

Freezing is my most frequently used method of storing hot peppers. You don't need to blanch them or even cut them up as they cut easily and cleanly while still frozen. I just cut their tops off and pop them into a sealed freezer bag. I only recently finished last year's habanero harvest - so convenient to have them on hand, ready to dice and pop into any recipe. They won't thaw as a nice crisp, firm pepper suitable for a stuffed popper, but frozen peppers are perfectly wonderful for cooking with.  I usually go out and pick peppers only when they're destined for supper - but my serranos are popping and ripening like crazy, so many have headed to the freezer or into hot sauces (olive oil emulsions). The jalapenos are outdoing themselves as well - i think black bean-cheese stuffed/ turkey bacon wrapped poppers are in our near future!

I really enjoyed the sour pickles i fermented a few weeks ago, and enjoy pickled jalapenos on nachos and salads - so, why not try my hand at those? The bag of peppers i was given is a mixed lot - mostly serranos and jalapenos, with some other peppers that look to me to be anaheim type peppers. I'll save the serranos for hot sauce and salsa, and pick out the larger peppers to be pickled. I saved some of the unused brine from the cucumber pickles, so i can make a smaller batch of these pepper pickles. ( so many Ps! )

Simply chop the jalapenos, toss in a mason jar along with some garlic cloves and a little onion bulb or two, cover with the brine and hold down with another jar and lid to keep the peppers covered in liquid. Set at room temperature for 5-7 days depending on the temp of the house (covered with cloth to keep the flies out) and wait for the peppers to change color and taste the way you want them. Store covered in some brine in a smaller jar in the fridge. Should keep for a good long time.
I separated into two jars as i wanted to leave plenty of head space for any fermenting bubble action.

Note: Leave MORE HEADSPACE THAN THIS - in only a few hours both jars began to overflow with the brine. Fill the jars about half way up with brine, and maybe place jars on something absorbent.

And what about those peaches, you ask? I may make a crisp, and will definitely make some peach salsa to accompany some locally caught trout a good friend gifted us - recipes later in the week. Or perhaps we'll just slice them and enjoy them fresh and raw along with our evening glasses of wine (and maybe some vanilla ice cream?????).