If it looks like a vegetable and tastes like a vegetable, then it’s most likely you can pickle it, writes Becky Krystal.
If you’re looking at any decent vegetable and wondering whether it can be pickled, the answer is probably yes. At least it is if we’re talking about quick pickles, which allow you more flexibility with less work and less stress, while still delivering the same enticing vinegar tang, crunchy texture and salty punch you’d get in more traditional pickling.
‘‘There’s a lot more freedom with quick pickles,’’ says author Marisa McClellan, who, in her latest book The Food in Jars Kitchen: 140 Ways to Cook, Bake, Plate, and Share Your Homemade Pantry, calls quick pickling her favourite way to pickle cucumbers.
In quick pickling, raw or minimally cooked ingredients are merely covered with brine and refrigerated, as opposed to traditional water-bath canning, which involves boiling in water to vacuum-seal a jar.
The former makes it especially appealing to novices and people who like to improvise, because there’s less worry about botulism, an illness caused by a bacteria toxin that proliferates in oxygen-free environments (the toxin-creating bacteria spores don’t like acid anyway, so pickles are already unfriendly to them).
Quick-pickled foods are stored in the refrigerator with plenty of oxygen around – in other words, not favourable conditions for the toxin.
Of course, quick pickling has a lot more going for it, too. Another advantage is that your fruit or vegetable of choice can retain better snap since it won’t undergo a boiling water bath.
The ease and convenience of quick pickling makes it a great way to use and extend the shelf life of extra produce. And it creates versatile, tasty foods with no special equipment or skills.
In quick pickling, raw or minimally cooked ingredients are merely covered with brine and refrigerated, as opposed to traditional water-bath canning, which involves boiling in water to vacuum-seal a jar.
Tips to get yourself into all kinds of (quick) pickles