Pickle Me!

While we were away the NY Times had a recipe for pickles that reminded me of my grandmother.  Not that I ever saw her cook, but I'd heard about Nonie on the ranch, making pickles and putting up beans and tomatoes, and Auntie Day setting kraut for the neighbors - apparently, if your kraut isn't set right it will spoil not ferment into deliciousness.  Who knew?  She also raised chickens and they were in great demand - and I have a dynamite recipe for fried chicken.  But that, as Des says, is a whole 'nother Oprah.  

So I thought I'd try to make pickles - it looked so simple, the hardest ingredient is patience.

I have made them now with both pickling cucumbers and Persian cucumbers.  With garlic and without.  With dill flowers and coriander.  And a pinch of hot pepper flakes.  They are all delicious.  

So here is the recipe.  To each quart jar I add half a clove of thinly sliced garlic, a pinch of red pepper flakes, sometimes a quarter teaspoon of whole coriander seeds.  You can do what ever you want.  

Do use the filtered water - our water has an extra-long-lasting form of chlorine (chloramine, if memory serves...) and it doesn't dissipate as normal chlorine does.  

They get cloudy, they get a little bubbly.  Taste them, refrigerate when they're sour enough for you.  I like them still a bit crisp, so I'm a three day pickle person.  You're on your own.

These are yummy with potato salad, with hot dogs, all the summer foods.  Except home-made ice cream.  Not so good there.

Sour Pickles

By CATHY BARROW

(from the NY Times I think...)

TOTAL TIME

20 minutes, plus 3 to 5 days brining

INGREDIENTS

1. 2 pounds freshly picked firm, unwaxed, bumpy pickling cucumbers, often called Kirby
2. 2 cloves spring garlic, sliced thin (optional)
3. 1 dill flower, or 5 sprigs fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dill seed (optional)
4. 1/2 teaspoon coriander seed (optional)
5. 1/2 jalapeño, seeded and slivered (optional)
6. 2 tablespoons salt

PREPARATION

1.

Soak cucumbers for 30 minutes in a bowl filled with ice water to loosen any dirt. Slice the blossom end off each cucumber, which is opposite the stem end. If you aren’t sure which end is which, slice a little off each. Cut cucumbers into spears or chunks, if desired.

2.

Pack cucumbers into one or two clean quart jars. Tuck in garlic, dill, coriander and jalapeño, if using.

3.

Add salt to two cups boiling water. Stir until dissolved. Add two cups of ice (made with filtered water if yours is chlorinated). Stir well until the ice has melted and the brine is cool. Pour brine into jars, covering cucumbers.

4.

Loosely cap jars and place in a bowl or pan because the jars may leak during fermentation.

5.

Leave pickles on the counter to ferment. The brine will bubble lazily and become cloudy. Taste after 3 days, leaving on the counter another day or two if you want your pickles more sour, or refrigerating if they’re ready. They keep a month in the refrigerator.

YIELD

1 to 2 quarts

A Marriage Made In Heaven

I’ve been making jam since Neva Westfall taught us how in 7th grade Home Economics class (another time and place, dear).  The boys took wood shop and I’m pretty sure they’re not still wood-shopping their little hearts out.  At least for the sake of their home decor, I hope not.

But I still make jam and jelly - cranberry and pomegranate jellies in the winter, peach jam with a hint of nutmeg at the height of summer.  Blood orange marmalade from the oranges we grow  - organic, of course.  (See my post on marmalade for the recipe.  And the how-to.)  

But I have never had the reaction to anything I make that I get to the strawberry rhubarb jam.  

“Best Thing I’ve Ever Put In My Mouth” a dear friend says.  “Awesome!” says Liberty, my youngest cooking pal.   I’ve had calls from friends, from 8 to 88, asking if there is any left, if they can have just one more jar.  

Fat red strawberries, sweet with a hint of tartness to keep them from being sappy, and thick red stalks of rhubarb have been at Lunardi’s (and in the farmer’s markets) for a few weeks, but they’re almost over.  And while you can find strawberries (of uncertain quality) later in the season and in the freezer all year, rhubarb is leaving.  You can’t make this jam without it, and I was disappointed with the quality of jam made with the rhubarb I chopped and froze last year.  Thought I could outfox mother nature.  Not.

I dare you not to eat it with a spoon.   Double dare.

So before Strawberry and Rhubarb seasons are over (and isn’t it nice the seasons coincide?) I am making enough strawberry rhubarb jam to have on my toast, and to share.  And just because I think it would be great over ice cream, but the jam sets up hard and fast, I am making a strawberry rhubarb compote.  Inspired by David Lebovitz’s blog.  Check it out.  His recipe is way more complicated, I am in love with mine.

It’s basically jam without the pectin, and since I’m not worrying about it setting I cut back on the sugar - part of rhubarb’s charm is its tartness.  I’m thinking over home-made vanilla ice cream, or a spoonful stirred into a  tall glass of soda water on a hot summer day, sipped by the pool (or in the pool if it’s really hot).

So here are the two recipes:

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

You will need half-pint canning jars, a water-bath canner and a canning rack (or a towel on the bottom of the pot, but that's complicated) for this recipe.  Jar tongs and long silicone potholder/gloves help too.  Check out the photos on my marmalade post.  Oh, and a heavy-bottomed pot to cook the jam.

4 cups diced rhubarb - just the red part, not the leafy bits

4 cups ripe strawberries, hulled (that means cut off the top leafy bit)

4 cups sugar, divided

1 box Sure-Jell No Sugar Needed Pectin (pink box)

1/2 teaspoon butter - not margarine.  Throw that stuff away.

Before you start, wash and sterilize (I run them thru the dishwasher) 8 or 9 half pint jars with two part lids - canning jars.  Separate the lids and rings, cover the lids with boiling water.  Set the rings aside.  And put your water-bath canner on to heat.  I start with the hottest tap water I can get, you're not cooking pasta, you're not eating the water, so who cares?   And it cuts down on the time it takes to come to a boil.  

I start the canner before I start chopping fruit.  Don't start cooking the jam until the water in the canner is boiling!!!  It takes a lot longer than you think, and you don't want the jam to cool or it won't process properly.  Plus you could end up with one huge congealed mass of strawberry rhubarb stuck in the pot.  Not pretty.

Chop the rhubarb, hull the strawberries (see the little leafy tops? Cut them off and throw them in the compost.)

In a small bowl, mix 1/4 cup of the sugar into the pectin.  Put this and the strawberries and rhubarb into a big heavy pot (Dutch oven sized, this will boil up), mix in the pectin and crush the strawberries a bit with a potato masher.

Add the little bit of butter - this will help keep the jam from foaming.  With apologies to Ferran Adria of El Bulli, I'm looking for jam, not molecular gastronomy.  

Bring the mixture to a full rolling boil - a boil that can't be stirred down.  Pour in the remaining sugar, bring back to a rolling boil and boil for Exactly One Minute.  No more, no less.

Immediately ladle into hot clean dry jars, leaving 1/4 inch head space.   Wipe the tops and threads of the jars, top with lids, screw on the rings and hand-tighten. Firmly.  

Put jars in a canning rack and lower into water bath.  Process for 10 minutes.

Remove jars, place on a towel (if you put them on granite or marble they may crack). and let cool.  The lids should suck down with a ping!  Store any jars that don't seal (there won't be any) in the fridge and use them first.

Eat.  Share.  Make more.
Makes about 8 half pint jars

Strawberry Rhubarb Compote

4 cups diced rhubarb - just the red part, not the leafy bits

4 cups ripe strawberries, hulled (that means cut off the top leafy bit)

3 1/2 cups sugar, divided

1/2 teaspoon butter - not margarine.  Throw that stuff away.

Prepare jars and water bath as above.  

Put strawberries, rhubarb, sugar and butter in a large heavy-bottomed pot.  Bring to a rolling boil, boil for about 5 minutes or until slightly thickened but still quite runny (it gets thicker as it cools) and remove from heat.

Fill jars and water-bath as above.
Makes about 8 half-pint jars.

Marmalade Skies

In a burst of enthusiasm - a big garden! unlimited space! (well not really, but that, as Des says, is a Whole 'Nother Oprah) I planted a bunch of citrus trees.

Since I'd been making marmalade for years and buying blood oranges (I know, I know, Seville oranges, but wait 'til you taste this! and the color is divine).

Anyway, as I was saying before I got carried away, I got a bit carried away (not me!) and I planted three blood orange trees.  One Tarocco, one Sanguinelli (even the name sounds bloody) and one Moro.  What I didn't know is that they would all come ripe at the same time.  Maybe not in your garden, but here?  Yes.  Definitely.   And since they're more than ten years old, we get a lot of oranges.

So I have been making marmalade.  Lots and lots of marmalade.  With Cathy, my partner in Jam (the most fun), by myself late at night - inevitably the batch you start latest takes the longest to finish.  That must be Murphy's Law Of Marmalade.  You heard it here first.

I started with a recipe and I've changed it  over the years to suit my taste.  Feel free to do the same.  If your turns out better (not bloody likely) let me know, share your tips.

So! Four pounds of oranges...

...organic and from a nearby garden if possible.  Washed, stem buttons removed.

Yes there will be a recipe.  Patience please.  Cover whole oranges in the kettle with water and simmer until easily pierced with a fork.  Forgot to photograph that part.  But if you can't do that part without a photo you probably should back slowly out of the kitchen and take up needlepoint.  On second thought try something that doesn't involve sharp objects.

Back to the marmalade...Let the fruit cool, in the juice or out.  Drain them (save that juice in the pan!) slice them thinly, removing the pits, add four pounds of sugar, and cook until a candy thermometer registers 221 (at sea level.  9 degrees above the boiling point of water, the original recipe said, but I've never made these above 600 feet in elevation, so you're on your own,  Sorry.)

As you can see, they cook down quite a bit...

As you're cooking any pits you've missed will float to the top.  Different specific gravity.  Who knew there would be a physics lesson?  Plus the pits have a very red base so they're easy to see.  I fish them out with a teaspoon, the wooden spoon just chases them around.  So high school.

Look how many I missed when I was slicing!

I also took out a rather unattractive orange bottom.  How would you like to see that on your toast?  Could put you off marmalade for life.  Not good.

When you've made this a few times, you can tell by the thickness of the syrup when to start paying attention to the thermometer.  Not that I've ever burned anything...not me.

Fill hot clean jars  - I use the dishwasher, first to clean, then on the plate warm cycle to keep the jars hot.  Cold jars will crack.  Trust me on this one.  And if you don't have a canning funnel, get one.

Wipe the rims with a damp towel - I use paper.

Put on the lids, tighten the rings.  Pretty tight - you don't want the jam leaking out.  Just the air.

I still use a canning rack, even tho the little jogs in the handle that supposedly let you hang the rack half-out of the boiling water are actually just there to tip the jars over when you lower them into the water and the handles have to come in.  Machiavelli must have made marmalade.  Or canning racks.

So into the boiling water they go...

I have these handy silicone mitts my friend Pam gave me.  I don't think I could get the jars in the water bath and all standing upright (very important!) without the mitts.  Thank you Pam.

And you can see the handles trying to tip over the jars.  Honestly, does anyone who designs this stuff actually test drive it?  Apparently not.

Ten minutes in the water bath, then onto a towel to cool.  If you put them directly on a granite or marble counter you risk cracking the jars, and after all this work I'm not taking any chances.

Another dozen jars of marmalade.  It's actually deeper in color and prettier than the photo but it's late and I'm too tired to fuss with the photo.

Home grown, home made.  Delicious, and properly sealed so you can store them in the wine cellar.  Won't your husband be thrilled!  Or in the pantry.  Not as much fun.

Sometimes I add some Scotch.   This time I meant to add Irish Whiskey but I forgot - it goes into the kettle at the end, after all the cooking, and if you're like me, things get a bit chaotic then - looking for lids and jar rings and tongs, taking the hot jars out of the dishwasher and burning my fingers...you get the idea.

So here - finally - is the recipe.  Oh, and check out the labels available at My Own Labels.com!

Classic Orange Marmalade

You must have a candy thermometer to make this.  !!!

4 pounds blood oranges

1 large lemon

8 cups water (more or less)

8 cups (4 pounds) sugar

1/4 cup good single-malt scotch or Irish Whiskey (optional)

Wash the lemon and oranges well.  Cut off the woody bit where they were attached to the tree, put them in a large non-reactive dutch-oven sized pan, add enough water to cover and simmer until tender enough to be pierced with a fork.

Let the fruit cool.  If you remove it from the juice it's less messy to slice because it's less juicy, but I am lazy and let them cool in the juice. 

When the fruit is cool, cut them in half the long way, remove and discard the seeds, and slice thinly.  Before you start slicing, put your boiling water bath canner on to heat, because it's going to take a lot longer than you think.

Return the oranges, lemon and the juice to the kettle and bring to a boil. 

Add the sugar and continue cooking, stirring as needed to prevent scorching, until the candy thermometer reads 221 degrees. (see above for above sea level)

Immediately remove from heat, and if you are adding scotch, pour it in now. It will foam up and boil off the alcohol. Stir until the fuss dies down.

Ladle into hot sterilized jars with two piece lids.  Put on the lids and process for 10 minutes in boiling water bath.  Makes about a dozen half pint jars.