Monday Morningcraft

Wow, who’s a girly swot then? Some gherkins turned up on my doorstep last night, and swift action was required. There was a variety of sizes, so I just went the traditional old ‘pack ‘em in a jar and pour hot vinegar over ‘em’ route, soaking them overnight first in brine.

Gherkins are the ultimate in maths puzzle geek preserving: I had an Agee quart jar and smaller one, and I wanted to fit all the giant mamas in the bigger jar. In order to do this, I got to arrange them, then work out where the gaps were, pull a few out and arrange the smaller ones between them. I was so efficient that there weren’t many left to fill the smaller jar. I then poured over the vinegar, which had been brought to the boil with some yummy pickling spices of unknown description picked up from Homestead Health. I had almost exactly the right amount of vinegar to fill the jars, with about half a cup left over for some future salad dressing… how awesome am I feeling right now? Yeah, pretty on to it…

(I took some photos on Charlotte’s camera, which I hope to extract from her soon…)

Sadly the colour is not quite what I wanted. I like to just use white vinegar so the gherkins look pretty. I didn’t have quite enough for this so sploshed a bit of malt in too – as you can see, highly precise practices. The resulting liquid is a dull kind of amber, but probably a little more dynamic in flavour. To be discovered in a month or so…

I still have a couple of jars of last years’ gherkin endeavours in the pantry. My normal gherkin practice is to eat ‘em whole and unadulterated. Sadly, my first pickling experience was marred by Mr Salt, whom I foolishly invited to the party in the pan with the vinegar. As a result the gherkins are so bitingly salty they need to be cut finely and added to something like a potato salad to balance out their sting. On all other counts my 2009 batch are deliciously flavoursome and crunchy, but it’s the salt that hits home. So they are lasting a VERY LONG TIME, possibly years.

Fortunately for me, a friend who has been growing some this summer has had enough of bottling them, and I’ve had two small bags worth from their garden. Thus, I can redeem my gherkin reputation without forking out a bit of money and a trip to Greytown. The giant ones from two weeks ago were sliced and made into a bread and butter pickle, with turmeric and mustard powder in the vinegar… another experiment I am looking forward to sampling in the coming weeks.