Sweet & Sour Pickled Gherkins
chocolate, herb, misc, pickles, preserving
vegetables
1 kg gherkins
50 gm salt
1 liter wine vinegar (6%) }
50 ml vinegar concentrate}
270 gm sugar
6 tablespoon mustard seed
4 bay leaves
8 button onions/shallots
8 sprigs dill
NB You need 1l of vinegar at 7%. This can also be made from 50:50 6% wine vinegar and 8% white spirit vinegar, or 1:2 cider to spirit. You could even use 7:1 spirit vinegar to water.
Wash and brush the gherkins. Sprinkle with the salt and leave in a bowl turning from time to time for 24 hours. After this time, wash and dry them and pack into sterile "1lb" jars, together with a couple (or more) pickling onions or shallots per jar.
Put vinegar, concentrate and sugar in a pan, warm to dissolve the sugar and bring rapidly to the boil. Straightaway, pour this over the gherkins in the jars, making sure they are well covered. Add a bayleaf & sprig of dill per jar, and sprinkle over 1 1/2 tbs of mustard seed (1 heaped) per jar. Cover and leave 2 months before using.
Recipe (pinched and adapted) IMH Georges' Home BBS 2:323/4.4
From: Ian Hoare Date: 13 Jan 97 National Cooking Echo Ä
Yield: 4 jars