Pickled: From Curing Lemons to Fermenting Cabbage, the Gourmand's Ultimate Guide to the World of Pickling Read Free

pickling jars generally are sold in half-pint, pint, and quart sizes with wide and regular mouths. Wide-mouth jars are convenient for packing such foods as whole tomatoes and peach halves. For the most part, though, you’ll probably be dicing your produce into small, even shapes so that they really get the full effect of your brine. There’s nothing wrong with pickling large items, but remember that it’s often the smallest and most intensely flavored morsels that really make a dish a culinary standout.

Canning Preparation
     
    Before you start canning, make sure to read your recipe at least twice and get your ingredients together. Organize the supplies and equipment you’ll need to complete your project. There’s nothing worse than realizing halfway through your project that you’re missing some key piece.

    Next, prepare your workspace. You’ll need counter space for preparing your foods as well as space for filling your jars once your pickles are prepped. Before you even consider starting to chop, dice, julienne, or otherwise work on your pickles, take a second to figure out exactly how many jars your recipe calls for. Make sure to examine your jars carefully, checking for cracks or chips. If you have a sterilizing cycle on your dishwasher, put your jars in and run it. Otherwise, use a bottle brush to scrub them inside and out, rinse them in hot water, and sterilize them by boiling them for 10 minutes in a stockpot or water-bath canner. Meanwhile, your lids should be placed in a pan of lightly simmering hot water to kill bacteria and soften the rubber sealing compound. Turn off the simmering water once your lids are in, and let them remain in the hot water while you treat your jars. This step might seem like a pain, but it’s definitely important for safe canning. Run the dishwasher while you’re practicing your knife skills with the pickles, or boil your jars while you’re firing up a vinegar mixture on the other burner. When it’s time to fill the jars, place an old terrycloth bath towel folded in half or two terrycloth kitchen towels on your counter. Never put your jars on an uncovered countertop; it could crack or shatter when you fill a jar with hot food and/or liquid, or the jar itself could crack or shatter. If the jar shatters, you’ve lost your pickles, but if your countertop shatters, you’ve lost your paycheck!

    Remember to leave the proper amount of headspace in your jar as you fill it—a general rule is about 1 ⁄ 4 inch for pickles, preserves, and most other water-bath-processed foods. This is just a generalization, however. Recipes that require a different amount of headspace will specify it in the recipe steps. Just be sure not to overfill your containers, since you don’t want fermented liquid seeping out of the jars in your refrigerator!
    The last step before processing is removing any air bubbles from the jar. Usually, you can’t actually see the air bubbles, but you can take care of any hidden ones by gently stirring the contents of the jar with a plastic stirrer (a wide, plastic knife works great). Make sure you’ve allowed a moment for the contents to cool slightly before you use any sort of thin plastic that isn’t heatproof. Use a damp kitchen towel to wipe the outer rims. Then put on a lid and screw the band firmly. Make sure you don’t overtighten your screwbands—an overly tight screwband can buckle in the canner. If that happens, you’ll end up with pickles that you can’t store safely—not that it’s always a bad thing to have to eat your pickles in large quantities immediately!

Processing Pickles
     
    In a typical water bath, sealed jars are placed on a rack and covered with water that rises 1–2 inches above their tops. Put a lid on your water bath, crank up the heat, and begin timing once the water starts boiling. Most recipes will ask you to process pickles for about 10 minutes to make sure that all of the harmful bacteria has been destroyed. Of course, follow