I had such a fun night learning how to make pickled vegetables at a Sarson’s event.
We were a bit pickled ourselves by the end of it – you think I would have learnt to not avail myself of free wine by my age, but I met a bad influence other Mum blogger and she made me do it. Ahem.
But anyway! It’s SO EASY to make pickles! We got to test four different types, pickled cucumber, garlic, peppers and a Vietnamese which was carrots and mooli and chilli. So yum.
My new friend Amy and I positioned ourselves near to the garlic bench – a) because garlic is awesome and b) it was next to the door and it was hot!
We listened to a quick spiel by our pickle expert Denise Tollyfield and then off we went.
It took us so long to peel all the garlic…so much garlic…we split the bulbs (so vigorously that at one point cloves were ejecting themselves across the room – whoops!) then we boiled them briefly and cooled them to make getting the skin off *marginally* easier…
While we were shelling the endless cloves of garlic, we sterilised our kilner jars by putting them in a water bath (you can use a dishwasher) Then we heated up our pickling vinegar and added some sugar.
Once the jars were ready we layered all our (eventually) peeled garlic with fennel seeds and pink peppercorns, then topped them up with the vinegar. Then we closed the jars and done – pickled garlic, ready to eat in a week or so!
If you make it at home, don’t worry if the garlic goes green – it’s supposed to do that!
P.S Expect your hands to smell of garlic for at least three days. Answers on how this may be prevented on a postcard please!
There’s lots of good pickling ideas over on the Sarsons website if you want to try your hand at easy pickle making.
I think I should have been a 1940’s housewife because I love preserving.It nice to be able to make your own as you can give them away as presents and have the satisfaction of knowing you they will be appreciated more.