How To Make Pickles?
I was planning to share a recipe for pickled veggies, but I couldn’t find the English name for one of the vegetables from cucumber family. We call it ‘acur’ in Turkish, but what is it in English? After searching for the English name of acur on the internet, I decided to ask it to my facebook friends, and they suggested some names by looking at its photo taken at bazaar. Would like to thank them all for helping me kindly! Re-searching on the names suggested, I decided on Armenian cucumber. I found out that it is also called Asian cucumber, but not as common.
Pickled veggies are one of the most loved side dishes in Turkish cuisine. We love to combine pickles with almost all dishes, but the most preferred companions of pickles are beans and kisir.
Fall is the ideal season for pickling. You can see various veggies sold at bazaar to be pickled in this season. Some of these are armenian cucumbers, cucumbers in all sizes, green tomatoes, peppers of all kinds, unripe melons, cabbage and green beans.
Pickling is another preparation for Winter, we make lots of jars in Fall and start eating in Winter. Well, starting in Winter is the purpose behind pickling, but nobody can wait it! We’ve already finished 2 jars! You don’t need to wait longer than 15 days if you are as impatient as we are!
Pickled Armenian Cucumbers And Gherkins
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 kilo Armenian cucumber
- 1 kilo gherkin
- 1o cloves garlic, peeled
- A few celery stalks
- ½ bunch of parsley
- 2 lemons, 1 squeezed, 1 sliced
- 1 ½ cup grape vinegar
- 1 tbsp sugar
- Kosher salt or sea salt
- Boiled cold water
Instructions
- Wash armenian cucumbers and gherkins, wait them to dry.
- Make a few tiny holes on veggies with a toothpick or knife so that they can absorb the brine. Place them into jars adding garlic cloves, lemon slices and celery stalks among them.
How To Make The Brine:
- Boil the water and let it cold. The amount of water depends on the size of your jars or you can prepare 2 or 3 liters of salty water and share it into jars.
- You can decide on the amount of salt with the egg method we use for curing green olives
- Put an egg into salty water, if it comes out, salt is enough.
- Add sugar and juice of 1 lemon, mix.
- Place parsley on top of each jar, it serves as a weight and prevents veggies from floating.
- Pour first vinegar and then salty water into jars.
- Cover jars and wait them in a dry place away from sunlight.
- You can enjoy your pickles after 15 days!
Notes
Note:
Never take pickles from jar with your hands, always use a fork! Otherwise, the brine goes bad and gets white.
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