Refrigerator Dills

This is the chicken’s way out. Not real cowardice about making cucumber pickles in a crock in the basement like I did with my grandmother, skimming the scum while pinching my nose at the acrid smell, only to be rewarded later with the delicious results. Hardly. I would do that again, but just not now in my way-too-warm cellar. And without confidence in my schedule. So instead, chicken about my ability to produce, I opted for the easy route, a quick pickle that cures in the refrigerator over a couple of weeks, just in time for a certain picnic in August.

I actually made these a couple of weeks ago and now they’re ready for prime time. This type of pickle may be canned using a water bath method, but I tend not to do that. While I like the water bath technique for bread and butter pickles (my “sweet-hots”), I think that dills take on an unpleasant soft texture. Better to go back to the crock method. 

This “refrigerator” method couldn’t be easier. It’s what’s called raw pack, meaning that raw sliced cucumbers, flowering heads of dill, and if you can get them, a raw grape leaf per jar are covered in boiling brine (water, vinegar and salt) and stored in the refrigerator to cure. Grape leaf? There’s some chemical in grape leaves that creates crispness. I recall that, for crispness, my old-world grandmother used alum, a horrible white chemical powder that I associate with childhood torture. Prone to canker sores in the mouth whenever I ate chocolate, I was daubed with the awful substance to cauterize the wound. It’s a wonder that I ever come near chocolate. Would anybody think of that today? Back to the more pleasant thought of crispy dilled cukes within a month.  By the way, you can make this with sliced Kirby cucumbers or small whole ones.

Refrigerator Dill Pickle Slices (for two quarts)

2 quarts small Kirby cucumbers, washed, dried and sliced (or left whole)

2 seed heads of dill

1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced

2 grape leaves, washed and dried

4 c water

1 1/3 c cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar

2 tbsp salt

Clean and “sterilize” two quart jars (pour boiling water in them, let cool for a few minutes and empty them). Pack them with the sliced cucumbers, sliding the grape leaf, garlic and dill head into each jar along the way. Bring the remaining ingredients to a boil and pour into the jars, leaving a little headspace (not so critical since you’ll cure them in the fridge). Insert a chopstick into the jars to release any air pockets. Cap the jars and let them cool before refrigerating for about two weeks until pickled.  (If you use canning lids, they will probably seal, but they should still be refrigerated.)

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Warm as a Cucumber: Cooked with Tarragon

Raw or cooked: that is the toss-up. Some vegetables are most commonly eaten raw — cucumbers, lettuce, radishes for example — but they can also be sautéed, braised, or even grilled. I happen to have a fondness for cooked cucumber, which becomes a very different experience when sautéed lightly in a little butter or olive oil, sparked with a splash of white wine vinegar and tossed with a seasonal herb. It’s almost lemony without the vinegar, and the addition of the acid sparks the character without having to add salt. Tarragon is especially great in early spring and my over-wintered pot full is already big and bushy. Its licorice-like grassy flavor is a terrific counterpoint to the cucumber.  Serve the warm cucumbers alongside chicken or fish or combine them with steamed potatoes. 

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Pickle Projects: Garlic Scapes, Sliced Dills and Sweet-Hots

Every week for the past 6 weeks, I’ve put up a small batch of pickles and now I have enough for a crowd. Which is perfect since about 150 people or so will show up for a picnic next week and while I’ll still be sweating the rest of the dishes, the pickles are ready. This has been a good year for small Kirby cucumbers and I took full advantage, since I did not want to hear the whining over a bare pickle pantry sometime in the winter. Last year’s sweet hot pickles were a great hit — chunky, sweet, spicy and peppery — and I made them in volume. (Other than canning tomatoes, tomato sauce and salsa of various kinds, I typically make really small batches of everything – sometimes as few as 2 jars. That way, we have variety and can actually eat all of that preserved produce before the next season arrives.)

I had accumulated about 40 garlic scapes from our CSA the weekend that I was making sliced cucumber pickles with dill, so I decided to pickle them too. Garlic scapes are the curling flower stalks of hardneck garlic plants and are typically cut off so that the plant’s energy is devoted to making a plump bulb. This type of garlic is actually called Rocambole but is nicknamed “serpentine garlic” for obvious reasons. I cut off the scapes of our garden garlic when they were younger than the ones from our CSA, so they were eaten raw or steamed. These needed a more aggressive treatment to tame them. 

Simplistically speaking, there are two ways to pickle fruits and vegetables: raw packed with brine poured over them and heated in brine. Brine typically consists of salt and vinegar (and water) but may also contain sugar, herbs and spices. For the sweet-hots, I macerated the cucumbers in salt and ice water before plunging them into hot pickling liquid, which cooks them slightly. Those were packed in jars that were sealed through a water bath canning process. For the dill pickles, I packed them raw into jars with dill and garlic and poured heated brine over the top, waiting until they cooled to refrigerate and let them cure for at least two weeks.

I treated the garlic scapes in the same way as the dill pickles but they were more of a challenge to get into the jars. After trimming the most fibrous cut end, I cut fairly straight pieces from the bottom, sizing them to fit into a 1.5-cup canning jar, leaving 1 inch of headroom. I cut off the blossom end and coiled the rest around the circumference of the jar. Into the center void, I tucked a grape leaf, which helps keep things crisp (you can omit this), the straight pieces of garlic scape and a fresh head of dill flower. Let this cure for a few weeks. 

I have started to sample the pickled scapes and think they could be used as a garlicky substitute for capers. More to come.

Pickled Garlic Scapes

Trim the tough ends of the garlic scapes. Cut the straight end into lengths that fit within your jar (about 3 inches). Remove the blossom end and neatly curl the scapes inside the jar. In the center void, place a grape leaf (optional) in the bottom, stack the straight pieces of the scape in the center and push a dill flower head into the top. Make the brine: bring to a boil 4 cups of water, 1 1/3 cup of distilled white vinegar or cider vinegar, and 2 tbsp salt, stirring until the salt dissolves.  Fill the jar with the hot brine, poking a chopstick or other narrow implement in the jar to release air bubbles (being careful not to pierce the vegetables). Set the jar aside to cool. Refrigerate tightly sealed.  The pickles will start to be ready in about two weeks.

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Summer Cucumber Salads

Dill fireworks over a cool cucumber salad made a festive presentation for the Fourth of July. A salad that is “cool as a cucumber” evokes a carefree, unperturbed summer.  The phrase is an old one, dating to mid-18^th century poetry, and always connoted an unflappable attitude, presumably referring to the fact that cucumbers are cool to the touch. Cucumbers, plentiful in early summer, make refreshing salads. 

One, a classic, is made of thinly sliced cucumbers with white wine vinegar and dill. Depending on the toughness of the skin, I remove some of the peel in vertical stripes. I slice the cucumbers into very thin slices, salt them lightly and place them in a bowl with a few ice cubes. The salt draws out excess water and bitterness and the ice helps make the cukes crisp.

 Another salad uses Taiwan cucumbers, cut into chunks, dressed in an Asian-inspired mix of rice vinegar and sesame oil, and garnished with toasted sesame seeds and shreds of Thai basil. Taiwan cucumbers, as they are called at our local farmers’ market, are about 6 inches long, not very seedy and medium-skinned. You can buy them in the grocery store under a different name. 

Cucumber Salad with Dill

1 cucumber, partially peeled in stripes and sliced very thin

1-2 scallions, white and light green parts, thinly sliced

Salt

Ice cubes

White wine vinegar (or cider vinegar)

Olive oil (optional)

Dill leaves

Dill seed heads for garnish

Place the sliced cucumber and scallions in a shallow bowl, sprinkle with a little salt, place a few ice cubes on top and let the mixture sit for about 10 minutes. Drain and cucumbers and scallions and toss with a few splashes of vinegar. Add a few drops of olive oil if desired. Stir in snipped dill and garnish with dill seed heads if desired.

Asian Cucumber Salad with Thai Basil

3 medium Taiwan cucumbers, cleaned and cut into chunks

Asian rice vinegar (seasoned or unseasoned)

Sesame oil

1 tsp sesame seeds, lightly toasted in a pan

A few leaves of Thai basil, shredded

Combine all ingredients. Refrigerate for 10 minutes before serving.

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Cucumber Salad with Pickled Spring Onions

About a month ago, just as spring onions were starting to bulb, I picked up several bunches of scallion-like specimens with violet flesh, which were being discarded in our local organic produce market. While the green ends were somewhat compromised, nothing was wrong with the bulb end. Pickled in a simple solution of vinegar and sugar (light on the sugar), they’ve been curing in my fridge for a few weeks.

 I deliberately kept the sugar content low, thinking I’d serve them as a condiment with some undetermined entrée. Instead, I sliced them and used both the onions and the pickling liquid in a fresh cucumber salad. In retrospect, I would boost the sugar (which I did in this recipe) and use white vinegar rather than white wine vinegar. These little guys were so beautiful that I’ll have to repeat this experiment, maybe with their older relatives, the bunching onion.

 Pickled Spring Onions

3 bunches violet spring onions, trimmed of their green leaves

1 c white vinegar (or white wine vinegar)

2/3 c water

1/3-1/2 c sugar

1 ½ – 2 tsp salt

5 peppercorns

5 allspice berries and/or cloves

A few chopped herbs (such as lovage, tarragon or parsley)

Trim enough onions to fit comfortably into a jar with a tight fitting lid. Bring the remaining ingredients, other then the herbs, to a boil and add the trimmed onions. Bring the liquid back to a boil and cook about 1-2 minutes, until the onions are slightly soft but still firm. Place the onions in the jar, add the herbs, and pour over the pickling liquid. When cool, cap the jar and place in the refrigerator to cure for at least a week.

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