Bryan made Dill Pickles in chip form to use with sandwiches. He opted for trying something easy since he had never done any pickling before. He used this recipe from allrecipes.com, but halved it since 4 cups of cucumber seemed like an awful lot.
Lara went for a “waste not, want not” approach and made watermelon rind pickles using Alton Brown’s recipe. She thought they were quite tasty – a bit spicy and sweet from the pepper flakes and apple cider vinegar. She served them as a side dish for her usual Friday Night dinner party. She and Jesse had some with veggie burgers, as well, and they were quite lovely. The recipe made a lot of pickles, since she still has about 4 cups of pickled rind left.
Mike joined the challenge for his first week and made a classic Indian food condiment, Lime Pickle. Since he was confined to finding ingredients in Southern California, he had to amend the recipe somewhat because of limitations in getting suitable Indian spices, and that there is a lot of variation on how long the process takes, and I added some kumquats, but it smelled right… and that’s all that matters!
I made Tartine’s spicy carrot pickles, and they taste fine, but are more vinegary and less spicy than I would have liked. I would do them in the future with smaller full carrots, but they came out at the farmers market one week too late for the recipe. I also used garlic scapes rather than garlic, since I had them, and I think the flavor complexity suffered a bit. Tartine serves these with the grilled cheeses, and I have to say that the combination of cheese on toast and these vinegary pickles is SO good. Don’t ask, just do it. But that’s really the only place they shine for me.
I also took left over brine and make some spicy dill pickles. They’re the same, but I added dill, purple scallions and garlic to the pickle spears. I think they taste just okay, but the dill pickle brine is great. My pickle loving roommates approved these.
I also quick pickled cherries last night because I’m never satisfied and I wanted to pickle a fruit to see. I think I could have halved the amount of cloves, but the sweet and tangy taste is intriguing. These were made for cocktails, but i think they’d be an interesting twist on a sundae or chopped into a dessert. The picture will come tonight, since I didn’t take one like I thought.
Excited to see what next week brings.
Capers in the Kitchen 