Refrigerator Pickles

[dsrtao]

Proper pickling of vegetables requires:
- sterilization of equipment
- proper canning technique
- proper measurement of salt, acid, and/or sugar, possibly including fiddly fermentation (aka luck with microorganisms).

And they last for months to years, and are very salty/sour/sweet.

Refrigerator pickles, on the other hand, need much less care and can taste much less extreme -- but they last weeks to months rather than months to years. And they need to be refrigerated, hence the name.

Over the last few days I have been turning local cucumbers into fair imitations of half-sours, garlic dills, bread-and-butter pickles, and the weird one which I call "boring pickles" -- salt, vinegar and turmeric, nothing else. Half my household likes them on sandwiches. They resemble the ones that low-end fast-food burger joints use.

And, for really near-term consumption, about three liters of chopped salad (the kind called, variously, Arab, Israeli, Shirazi, Serbian, Kachumber...) which I estimate will last three days.

Comments

[matildalucet]

Do you do anything with radishes? I find myself with most of a bunch leftover from a different project, many more than I can eat in a week. I was thinking of trying some kind of pickle to extend their usable life. I think I've only ever quick-pickled cuke, and that rarely.

[dsrtao]

We tend to eat or cook with radishes faster than they come in to the house. I like them as additions to vegetable curries, sliced in salads, or sliced into sandwiches.

If you want to turn them into refrigerator pickles, I would probably drop them into a jar of water at about 1% salt, 33-50% vinegar and a little of anything you'd like to flavor them -- maybe a piece of ginger?