Preserving cucumbers
This year I grew an F1 hybrid cucumber that produced an abundant supply of smallish (4-6 inch) delicious cucumbers. I couldn’t keep up with the crop, so I decided to pickle the remaining cucumbers for use in Raclettes etc.
Firstly, clean the cucumbers and leave them for 24 hours in a brine solution, to try and remove some water from them.
Then make up a batch of ‘pickling solution’ from the following:
- 1 litre white pickling vinegar
- 1 litre water
- handful of salt
- handful of sugar
- allspice berries
- pepper corns
- couple of sprigs of rosemary
- couple of sprigs of dill
Put all this in to a large saucepan and bring it up to simmering point. In the meantime pack your cucumbers in to jars (I use le Parfait preserving jars, but any jars with plastic coated or glass lids will do. plain metal lids are not good as they will corrode due to the vinegar.)
When the solution is simmering, bring it off the heat and allow it to cool a little with a lid on (this is important as it infuses all the flavours in to the solution.)
Pour the solution over the cucumbers so that they are completely covered and seal the jars. Leave for several months for the solution to be absorbed by the cucumbers.
