What a pickle

I've not been doing much meal cooking. This last hot week of August has had me eating bread and tomatoes for most meals except for a few days when catering for a guest, when we ate traditional favourites that wouldn't stand to be blogged yet again.

But nature abhors a vacuum apparently. To take up the slack on my time in the kitchen I've been trying to preserve some of the harvest for later in the year. It's something I'm a bit ambivalent about - I love pickles and jams to eat as well as to make but we often find ourselves with a glut of produce turned into a glut of storage goods and still they don't get eaten up. It's just more effort and money in sugar, vinegar and fuel that is ultimately wasted. Still, there are some preserves that we do come back to year after year and if I'm careful with the quantities we'll have finished them up before we're bored of them.

This week I made some hot tomato jam, based on the Mark Bittman recipe here. This recipe is a good starting point for your own flights of flavouring fancy, and I think spicy hot is the way to go. Last year I made some and it was all finished within the month, it was that good. A word of warning though, take care when bottling it. I bottle into hot jars and still managed to crack the bottom off one with this very high temperature preparation. Most annoying.

The Piccalilli is the British standard recipe enshrined in Government handouts since at least the 2nd World War although mysteriously any number of celeb. chefs seem to have their own version. I adore the sweet mixture of ground ginger and turmeric which is the basis of the flavouring. For American readers I should point out that this is pretty much Bread and Butter pickles but Brits like to put cauliflower and onions in theirs. It's a cultural thing. It can be made hot, sweet or both.

The Sweet Cucumber relish is a little less well known so I'll give you the recipe below. We like it very much, sweet and sour with an intriguing flavour from the celery seed. Good on burger type things and in sandwiches.

Sweet Cucumber Pickle

All weights after preparation:

1kg cucumbers, you can use pickling cukes that have got away for this or shop bought ones, it makes little difference. Wash them well and slit lengthways to remove the seeds and wet pulp, then chop the flesh into neat cubes a little smaller than 1cm square. No need to peel unless the skin is really tough.
500g white or yellow onions, chopped finely
300g sweet peppers - use red or green or a mixture. Seed and remove the white pith and then cut into fine short slivers.

Mix all these chopped vegetables in a big bowl with 25g of cooking salt, cover and leave to sweat out their juices for at least 2 hours, and up to 8 if it suits your schedule.

The vegetables will produce a lot of juice. With your bare hands or some improvisation with tea towels and stick, squeeze out all of this juice and put the dry vegetables into a clean stainless steel pan. Most of the salt will be left behind but if it worries you, you can rinse the veg. well before the squeezing operation.

Add 500ml of good quality cider or white vinegar - this is mainly to keep the colour, as dark vinegar won't affect the taste, just the looks.

Simmer the vegetables in the vinegar for 10 minutes or so until just tender. There is barely enough liquid so keep the lid on but don't be tempted to add more because, well, because I say so.

Add 500g white sugar (the devil's food), and 1 tsp. mustard seed (yellow or black!). Then add half teaspoons of turmeric (don't overdo this, the colour again) and celery seed. Avoid ready ground celery seed if you can, I couldn't, the French are weird. Finally add just a pinch of ground cloves, they're really really strong.

Stir everything over a gentle heat until the sugar dissolves, then bring it all to a boil for a couple of minutes.

I pot hot, into sterile jars and seal immediately. This is the British way and the pickle will keep good in a cool dark cupboard for a year, only needing refrigeration after it's been opened. Lift the solids with a slotted spoon into the jar (a jam funnel is an excellent aid at this moment) and then top up with the juice, tapping to remove air bubbles. If you didn't squeeze hard enough or added too much vinegar you'll have a lot of juice left over, don't say you weren't warned. Be careful, it's hot!

If you prefer, allow the cucumber relish to cool, fill your canning jars and process in the way recommended for other pickles.