Quickles

 


Ingredients:

  • 1 lb firm vegetables (carrots, green beens, red onion, cucumber, asparagus, broccoli etc)
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 8 sprigs dill
  • 1 tbsp black peppercorns
  • 1 cup vinegar (apple cider or white wine)
  • 1 tbsp kosher salt
Special Equipment: 2 mason jars with lids

Instructions:
  1. Peel and cut vegetable into desired shapes, eg spears, medalions, rings etc
  2. Divide vegetables into 2 mason jars. Include 2 cloves garlic, 4 sprigs dill, and 1/2 tbsp black peppercorn in each
  3. In small sauce pan, combine 2 cups water, 1 cup vinegar, and 1 tbsp kosher salt to a boil, making sure the salt dissolves
  4. Pour vinegar mixture over vegetables
  5. Let cool before screwing caps back on, then refrigerate for at least 24 hours
Yield: 2 mason jars of quickles

Source: The Diabetes Code by Jason Fung

Tips: 

This recipe makes classic garlic dill quickles. There is plenty of room to play with other herbs that will impart different flavours.

Seeing that the brine was made with three cups of liquid, I thought that my fairly packed jars would not need all of it. So I prepared two extras, and wound up needing to make a second batch of brine and herbs to cover everything.

Description:

Early in the pandemic when I thought society might collapse, I became fascinated with food preservation methods. You know, just in case I needed them at some point. 

A popular way of doing this, especially in Eastern Europe, is through pickling. I never got around to learning how to do it though, and only at this late date have I begun experimenting.

The way I've done it here is not a proper way of preserving food. For that purpose, you'd have to form a seal, which this recipe does not require. Instead, this is just a speedy way of getting the flavour of pickles.

The book I'm getting the recipe from has it listed as "quick pickle". I saw a few online sources with similar names. I admire the immense restraint they've shown in avoiding the extremely obvious short form, "quickle". I have not demonstrated that restraint here.

In the above image, I've made quickled green beans, carrots, cucumbers, and onions. In North America, cucumbers are so much the standard that, said alone, "pickles" are immediately known to mean pickled cucumbers. However, there are plenty of foods that can work with this recipe. A surprise winner here were the green beans, which were firm enough to avoid compromising the texture, but which absorb the brine a bit internally, giving a burst of flavour when bitten. I also want to try making pickled turnip, as that is a popular topping in shawarma.

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