The September 2010 Daring Cooks’ challenge was hosted by John of Eat4Fun. John chose to challenge The Daring Cooks to learn about food preservation, mainly in the form of canning and freezing. He challenged everyone to make a recipe and preserve it. John’s source for food preservation information was from The National Center for Home Food Preservation.
I have done a lot of preserving over the years, so decided to make an interesting recipe that can be kept in the fridge or freezer. The best thing about these pickles is that they are very crisp. Despite several tries and different recipes, I have never gotten really crisp pickles that are heat preserved.
I think this recipe would work fine with cucumbers instead of zucchini.
This recipe is adapted from a cookbook that is probably no longer in print, called Quick Pickles, Easy recipes with Big Flavor, by Chris Schlesinger, John Willoughby, and Dan George. The book is all quick pickles, and I have made several variations from the book, so if you can find it it is great.
Curried Zucchini Pickles
This recipe is originally for refrigerator storage, and will keep for about 6 weeks. However, after making another recipe for freezer ice box pickles, I experimented and discovered that these keep very well frozen, and stay crisp for about a week in the fridge once thawed. I used a really big (5 lbs) zucchini with a tough skin, and it worked great after scraping out the seeds and pithy stuff from the centre.
Even people who don’t like zucchini like these.
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Ingredients |
Method |
| Stage 1, Salting the veggies:
3 pounds zucchini 1 or 2 red peppers, cut into small pieces 3 medium size onions, peeled and sliced into thin rings ¼ cup coarse salt Adding the grapes: 1 cup red or green grapes, cut in half (Note, these go in after the brining step, do not add in step one) The spiced pickling mixture: 2 3/4 cups cider vinegar 1 1/2 cups orange juice 3/4 cup sherry (amontillado) 2 cups sugar 1 T curry powder ½ tsp cayenne or ancho chili powder 1 tsp whole cloves 1 tsp whole allspice berries Fresh ginger, about 1″, cut into fine strips 3 cloves garlic (optional) |
Cut the zucchini into thin 1/8 inch little wedges. If using a really whopper zucchini, then scrape out the inside seeds and pithy interior. You can peel the zucchini, but I prefer it left green.
Place all this in a glass bowl, mix in the salt, and let sit for an hour. The salt will extract the juices, and the pile of zucchini will shrink. This is why the pickles stay crisp. Rinse the veggies three times to get all the salt out. Place back in the bowl, and add the grapes. Make the spice mixture in a saucepan, simmer for a couple minutes, and pour over the vegetables. Pack into jars that have been rinsed in boiling water first to sterilize. For refrigerator storage I use quarts and for freezing I use half or quarter pints so that I only defrost a small portion since they only stay crisp for a week at most, and are best the first cou0ple days. These are good to eat in a couple hours, but best starting the next day. They must be kept in the fridge or freezer. |
