It is funny how "pickles" has evolved to mean pickled cucumbers. Back in the day, apparently, "pickles" meant anything that was pickled - so even cucumbers were called "pickled cucumbers." Funny, at least to me. ;-)
So, anyway, here is the follow-up on those fermented pickles - 4 to 5 days was enough in the summer on the kitchen counter to make them sufficiently pickle-like for our tastes. They are delicious and in jars in the fridge now. The only lessons I have to pass on are these:
1) If you cut the cucumbers for pickling, be sure to cut them larger than you want the final eating size to be because the brine will shrink them. Kinda one of those "duh" things, but yeah...there it is.
2) Our skins are tough on some of our pickles. My theory is that they were not processed the day they were harvested and my other-half's theory is that they grew too long/over-grew. I picked two "over-grown" cucumbers the other day and put them in the brine to ferment after removing the others. And the results are.....oh! Yum! (yes, I did in fact just go test them for the first time!) So, the ruling is that the tough skins were a result of starting the brine when the cucumbers were not fresh. Fresh cucumbers + tannin leaves (see previous post) = crunchy pickles!
Oh yum, we do love these fermented pickles! Hard to believe the fresh-pack will be as good or better, but we'll see soon! Waiting on those cucumbers to grow :)
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