August 4, 2023

Cucumber Pickle

A delicious wintery pie perfect for a veggie sunday dinner, a celebration meal or even the festive table. Do use whatever root veggies (or squash) you have in, the more of a mix the tastier and more interesting the pie. Veggies are encased in a rich Gruyere, Parmesan and wholegrain mustard sauce. I tend to make my own rough puff pastry for this using this recipe on the BBC site: Rough-puff Pastry, but you can just as tastily use shop bought all butter puff pastry, buy it ready rolled for added convenience.

Prep: 20 mins

Cook: 25 mins

Ingredients

  • 4 large cucumbers
  • 3 medium onions
  • 2 oz/50g of salt

For the syrup

  • 1pt/570ml of white wine vinegar
  • 1lb/454g of soft brown sugar
  • ½ level tsp of ground turmeric
  • ½ level tsp of ground cloves
  • 1 tbsp of mustard seed (we used black)
  • (We also put a large sprig of fennel in each jar when we added the vegetables).

Method

  1. Wash cucumber and slice very thinly (we used Danny’s natty Japanese mandolin for slicing the cucumber and the onion).
  2. Peel the onions and slice very thinly.
  3. In a large bowl, layer cucumbers and onions with a sprinkling of salt in between the layers. Weigh down with a plate.
  4. Stand for three hours.
  5. After three hours, pour away the liquid and rinse the cucumbers and onions under running water twice.
  6. Put your jars in the oven to sterilised them. (How do I sterilise jars? See tricks and tips below).
  7. Put vinegar, sugar and spices in a stainless steel or non stick saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the sugar is dissolved.
  8. Add the cucumber and onions to the saucepan and bring to the boil.
  9. Boil syrup and vegetables for a couple of minutes. Remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon and set aside.
  10. Reduce remaining syrup for 15-20 min.
  11. After ten minutes or so, gently fill warm, sterilised jars with vegetables. Don’t press down.
  12. When syrup has reduced, pour over vegetables in jars.
  13. Cover immediately with plastic lined, sterilised metal lids. (How do I sterilise lids? See tricks and tips below).
  14. When cold, label and store in a cool, dark place, away from damp

Tricks and tips:

How do I sterilise jars and lids?

We collect jars all year round for our jelly, chutney and jam making sessions. I try to soak off labels and store the clean jars and metal plastic coated screw-top lids in an accessible place. The sterilising method that we used is simple. Just before making jam, jelly,’cheese’, chutney or pickles.I quickly wash and rinse the jars and place them upside down in a cold oven. I set the temperature to 160c/140c for fan assisted. When the oven has reached the right temperature I turn off the heat. The jars will stay warm for quite a while. I only use plastic lined lids for preserves as the all-metal lids can go rusty and if there is vinegar in the jar, this can react badly with metal. I boil lids for five minutes in water to sterilise them. If I use Le Parfait jars, I do the same with the rubber rings.