How to quick pickle anything
To quick pickle any vegetable is to take a leaf out of the professional chef’s secret handbook. Pickling is also be a easy and quick way to salvage those vegetables in the bottom of your fridge that seem to be destined for a sticky end. You can practically pickle anything – cabbage, peppers , root vegetables, husbands, children.. but my personal favorite is shallots.
The quick deets on the cheat
True pickles are fermented and take days, if not weeks, to reach prime yum. This method of quick pickling can be done in less than 30 minutes. It might not give you that dill feeling, but will surely spice up your next meal. Sweet, salty and loaded with crunch, there’s a reason you can find elements like pickled shallots in many a restaurant dish. It’s that thing that makes you go mmmmm.
The best part about pickling at home is you can control the sweet-salty ratio by simply adjusting the sugar content up or down. So go ahead and cheat. You know you want to, and you’ll be glad you did.
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Quick pickling recipe + basic pickling ratio
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: Two Batches
- Category: Recipes
- Method: Boiling
- Cuisine: French
- Diet: Vegan
Description
More of a method than a recipe, this way of pickling is perfect when you want to spice up you meal in a pinch! A good place to start is 2:1 liquid to salt/sugar. If you like a sweet (think bread and butter-style), a few pinches of salt will do, for a more traditional brine stick with salt. These pickled veggies can be served the same day, but if you let them linger in the refrigerator they’ll get tastier with time.
Go nuts experimenting with vinegars, some of our house favs are champagne and apple cider vinegar for it’s awesome nutritive properties. But any vinegar will do, with the exception of balsamic due to it’s high sugar content.
Ingredients
2 carrots, peeled, cut and blanched* (see note below about blanching)
1/2 red onion, sliced thin
1 cup apple cider vinegar, Bragg’s recommended
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
a few pinches of kosher salt
Instructions
- In a small saucepan, combine last three ingredients and bring just to a boil.
- In separate heat-proof bowls, pour pickling liquid over vegetables. Let cool to room temperature, then seal vegetables, completely submerged in liquid in a mason jar or glass container.
- Serve, or refrigerate for up to two weeks.
Notes
Keywords: how to quick pickle vegetables, pickling recipe, pickling liquid ratio
What is blanching?
To blanch in the French language means to “launder, bleach, whiten”… so you may be wondering how the heck did it end up in the kitchen glossary?
Well, the technique of blanching is to quickly cook raw ingredients in boiling water to slightly soften their texture and set their color. I guess it’s possible to understand how French chefs got from dirty laundry to boiling vegetables. But I’ve learned in my time cooking and baking with the French not to ask too many questions, and just to add butter. Although perhaps not to your pickling liquid!
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