The Amish Canning Cookbook (10 page)
Read The Amish Canning Cookbook Online
Authors: Georgia Varozza
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Quick
or unfermented pickles are made in one or two days by adding acid in the form of 5% vinegar. The amount of vinegar used is critical to your success and the safety of the finished product, and this is the area where that favorite old-time recipe you like to use may need adjusting.
Tips for Pickling Food Safely
Pickle recipes abound, but in order to guarantee that your favorite recipe is safe, here are some pointers to keep in mind:
• Always use 5% vinegar, either distilled white or cider. White vinegar has a tart taste and is most often used with light-colored vegetables while cider vinegar has a milder flavor. Unless you have tested the acid level in your homemade vinegar and know it’s 5%, you’re better off using store-bought.
• Quick or unfermented pickles must have at least as much vinegar as water to be considered safe. An adequate amount of vinegar is the single most important ingredient when making quick pickles. If you find the taste too tart, don’t reduce the amount of vinegar used—try adding a bit of sugar instead.
• Brined or fermented pickles (including sauerkraut) must include salt. During the fermenting process, additional salt is sometimes added over a period of several weeks. Several times each week you must check the surface of the fermenting brine and remove any scum that accumulates.
• If you use lime as a firming agent, use only food-grade lime and rinse the food well before processing.
• Quick pickles are processed as soon as they are made while brined pickles must not be processed until they have a sour taste.
Brined or Fermented Pickles
Containers:
You will need to select a fermenting container, which should be a stoneware crock, glass jar, or food-grade plastic container. A one-gallon container is adequate to brine about 5 pounds of vegetables; you can use quart or half-gallon jars for making sauerkraut, but you might experience more spoilage with them, so it’s better to stick with at least a gallon size. If you are brining large quantities of food,
do not use a garbage can
or any other container that isn’t expressly made for contact with food. Also, during the entire process, do not use utensils that consist of zinc, copper, brass, galvanized metal, or iron as these metals may react with the acid or salt and affect the quality, color, and safety of the pickles.
Make sure all of the equipment you use has been thoroughly cleaned.
Weights:
A weight is needed to keep the food under the brine solution while the fermenting process takes place. You can use a plate (such as a dinner plate or pie pan) that is slightly smaller than the container opening. On top of this plate, stand 2 or 3 quart jars filled with water and tightly covered so even if they tip, there is no leakage into the fermenting crock. You can also use large food-grade plastic bags (quart or gallon freezer bags work well) filled with a solution of 1½ tablespoons salt for every 1 quart water; make sure the bags are completely closed and then double bag them for added measure. Whichever type of weight you use, you will want to adjust the amount of water used (or brine if using plastic bags) in order to provide just enough weight to keep the food under the brine.
When fermenting, make sure to keep the food 1 to 2 inches under the brine. After weighting down the food, cover the container opening with a clean, heavy bath towel to prevent contamination from insects and molds.
Water:
Soft water makes the best brine for pickles. But if you have hard water, you can boil your water and then let it set in the covered container undisturbed for 24 hours. Now skim off any scum that appears across the top and then carefully ladle out the water without disturbing the sediment that might have collected at the bottom of the pot.
A note about salt:
You can safely use table salt, but there are additives that might turn your brine cloudy—it’s better to use pickling or canning salt. Also, never use reduced-sodium, flake, sea, sour, or rock salt. Do not use salt substitutes.
Brined Pickle and Sauerkraut Recipes
When making the following recipes, take care to accurately measure the ingredients. And except for any optional ingredients, don’t deviate from the recipe. If you follow these guidelines, you are sure to have success with great tasting, old-fashioned brined pickles and sauerkraut. Yum!
Choose tender, ripe cucumbers that do not have any blemishes. Begin the brining process as soon after harvesting as possible—within 24 hours is best.
Carefully wash cucumbers: Using a soft brush or cloth, gently scrub the cukes so as to remove any clinging soil or debris, which can cause spoilage. Rinse the cucumbers several times in fresh, cool water. Cut
-inch off of the blossom ends. You can cut off the stem ends or leave ¼-inch of the stem attached if you prefer.
Next, you will fill your crock or other brining container. The following quantities will fill a gallon container. Adjust the amounts depending on the container size:
4 lbs. pickling cucumbers of uniform size
4 to 5 heads fresh or dry dill weed or 2 T. dill seed
2 cloves garlic (optional)
2 dried red peppers (optional)
2 tsp. whole mixed pickling spices
½ cup salt
¼ cup 5% vinegar
8 cups water
Place half of the dill and other spices (do not add the salt, vinegar, or water yet) into the bottom of the container. Add cucumbers and the remaining dill and spices.
Dissolve the salt into the vinegar and water and pour over cucumbers. Place the weight over the top, making sure that the cukes are kept 1 to 2 inches under the brine solution. Cover with a heavy towel to keep insects from getting into the brine.
Find a place where the temperature is between 55 and 75 degrees. Pickles stored at 70 to 75 degrees will take about 3 to 4 weeks to fully ferment. If the temperature drops to between 55 and 65 degrees, fermentation will take 5 to 6 weeks. If the temperature gets higher than 80 degrees the pickles will become too soft, and if the temperature falls below 55 degrees fermentation may not take place.
Check the container several times a week and remove any scum that appears on the surface. If the pickles become soft or slimy, or if they develop an unpleasant odor, discard them and start over. The fermentation process should begin in 2 to 3 days. Bubbles will appear and the color of the cucumbers will begin to change. When the pickles are fully fermented and have the characteristic sour taste, you can store them in the original container for 4 to 6 months in the refrigerator; just remember to keep regularly removing any surface scum that appears. But a better way to store your fermented pickles is to can them.
Canning fermented pickles:
Pour off the brine from your fully fermented pickles into a large pot and heat slowly to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes. Filter the brine through paper coffee filters to reduce cloudiness, if desired. Fill pint or quart jars with the pickles and hot brine, leaving ½-inch headspace. Following the directions in chapter 3, “Water-Bath Canning: A Step-by-Step Guide,” process the pickles as follows:
Process
quarts
for 15 minutes at 0 to 1,000 feet altitude; 20 minutes at 1,001 to 6,000 feet altitude; 25 minutes above 6,000 feet.
Process
pints
for 10 minutes at 0 to 1,000 feet altitude; 15 minutes at 1,001 to 6,000 feet altitude; 20 minutes above 6,000 feet.
Alternately, you can process the jars using the “Lower-Temperature Pasteurization Process” found at the end of this chapter.
5 lbs. cabbage per 1 gallon
3 T. canning or pickling salt
Choose cabbages with firm heads. Use within 48 hours of harvest for best quality. Discard outer leaves and rinse heads under cold running water; drain. Cut heads into quarters and remove cores.
Regardless of how much cabbage you have to process, only work with 5 pounds at a time. Shred or slice cabbage very thin (about the thickness of a quarter). Put the shredded cabbage into the fermentation container and add 3 tablespoons salt. Mix thoroughly, using your (clean!) hands. Once the salt and cabbage have been mixed, you now want to pack the cabbage. Pack by pushing hard on the cabbage with your fist and keep mixing and packing until the juices from the cabbage have been released. Repeat the shredding, salting, and packing until all of the cabbage is in the container. Be sure the container is deep enough that there are at least 4 to 5 inches of open container above the top level of the cabbage. If the released juice doesn’t cover the cabbage (you might have to press down a bit on the top because the cabbage will tend to float) you will need to add boiled and cooled brine, which is made with 1½ tablespoons of salt per quart of water.
Add weights and then cover the container with a clean towel. If you use a plate and weights, you will need to inspect the kraut 2 or 3 times each week and remove any scum that appears on the surface. If you use plastic bags filled with salt water, leave the container undisturbed until fermentation is complete—when bubbling stops. If your kraut is in a 1-gallon container, fermentation usually takes place within 10 to 14 days. For larger containers, fermentation is complete in 3 to 4 weeks if kept between 70 and 75 degrees. At 60 degrees, fermentation can take 5 to 6 weeks.
You can keep fully fermented sauerkraut in the refrigerator tightly covered for several months or can the kraut for longer storage as follows:
Hot pack:
In a large pot, slowly heat kraut and brining liquid to a boil, stirring frequently. Firmly pack hot kraut into hot jars, leaving half an inch of headspace. Following the directions in chapter 3, “Water-Bath Canning: A Step-by-Step Guide,” process the sauerkraut as follows:
Process
quarts
for 15 minutes at 0 to 1,000 feet altitude; 20 minutes at 1,001 to 6,000 feet altitude; 25 minutes above 6,000 feet.
Process
pints
for 10 minutes at 0 to 1,000 feet altitude; 15 minutes at 1,001 to 6,000 feet altitude; 20 minutes above 6,000 feet.
Raw pack:
Fill jars firmly with sauerkraut and brining liquid, leaving ½-inch headspace. Following the directions in chapter 3, “Water-Bath Canning: A Step-by-Step Guide,” process the sauerkraut as follows:
Process
quarts
for 25 minutes at 0 to 1,000 feet altitude; 30 minutes at 1,001 to 3,000 feet altitude; 35 minutes at 3,001 to 6,000 feet altitude; 40 minutes above 6,000 feet.
Process
pints
for 20 minutes at 0 to 1,000 feet altitude; 25 minutes at 1,001 to 3,000 feet altitude; 30 minutes at 3,001 to 6,000 feet altitude; 35 minutes above 6,000 feet.
Alternately, you can process the jars using the “Lower-Temperature Pasteurization Process” found at the end of this chapter.
Fresh-packed, or “quick,” pickle recipes are easily made in only one or two days; some are brined for several hours or overnight and then drained and processed with vinegar and spices, while some recipes call for immediate processing. Fruit pickles are prepared by heating the fruit in syrup to which either lemon juice or vinegar has been added. Because quick pickles use acid in the form of added vinegar to prevent bacterial growth, you must carefully measure the vinegar amounts used in the following recipes to ensure that your finished product will be safe.
Fresh-pack pickles don’t develop flavor from a long fermentation period, so it’s a good idea to allow the jars of processed food to remain unopened for several weeks in order for the flavors to fully develop.
8 pints fresh asparagus spears
6 cups water
6 cups 5% vinegar
6 T. salt
2 tsp. pickling spices with no cloves, tied into a clean, thin white bag (you can remove the cloves if your pickling spice mix contains them)
Garlic, 1 clove per jar
Wash asparagus and cut the stem ends enough so spears fit into pint or quart jars.
