Thursday’s Recipe …. Countertop Sour Pickles
My kitchen has been smelling like a deli this week! It brings back fond memories of the years I spent hanging out at Bernie’s!
I shared on my twitter and face book about how great my countertop pickles tasted and was then asked by so many people for the recipe–So here it is!
I belong to an organic produce co-op. One of the other members spoke of her counter top pickles and was also asked by many of us for the recipe. She referred us to Wild Fermentation. I linked to this website back when I made fermented carrots and sauerkraut.
Basically this is what I did–Because these were not just picked out of my garden -I soaked my cucumbers in cold water in the fridge for a few hours to crisp them up. I had regular old large cucumbers not pickling ones so I cut them in half and then quartered them. I dissolved 1 Tablespoon of salt for each cup of water. I think I did 8 cups of water for the 3 large cucumbers I had. I did not have a large enough jar so I used the inner crock from one of my crock pots. Perfect!!
After stirring and stirring to dissolve the salt I gently crushed several heads of garlic-say 4 or 5 with the back of a spoon-just to crack them open and threw those in the water with a small handful of peppercorns , 4 heads of flowering dill and a small handful of fresh dill and 2 freshly washed oak leaves from the big tree. The oak , grape, sour cherry or horseradish leaves are to help keep the crunch.
I mixed all of that around and placed a plate on the top to keep the cucumbers submersed in the brine.
I then put the lid on very loosely–leaving it slightly cracked open on one side.
The next morning I noticed a few bubbles–IT”S ALIVE!!! Then there was a film that I scraped off over the next couple of days-then we tasted on day 2–delicious!! Actually we ate several!
It has been really hot here so the fermenting went quickly! I left them 1 more day and then moved them into jars (that I have been saving from our Bubbies pickles) and put them in the fridge to slow down the process.M more were eaten this morning as I moved them into the jars–lucky I ordered several more pounds of cucumbers this week!
We might need to add some Rubens to the menu!!