I love pickles! I'd say it started as a kid, I remember cutting up whole pickles into tiny bits and slapping them between two pieces of bread and eating pickle sandwiches - a delicacy!
My absolute favorite pickle (we all have one, don't we?!) was a homemade recipe that belonged to my grandmother's friend Molly. I can remember her digging a jar out of the fridge, sitting in her tiny, well-worn, utilitarian kitchen and loving every last bite! Unfortunately, as with many traditions, Molly's recipe went to heaven with her many years ago. I thought I'd never taste her pickles again...until recently, I think I've finally cracked the code!
Have you ever canned something? An awesome person and friend of mine back in Pittsburgh and I asked ourselves this question one summer. It started with the realization that our family recipes and traditions all included canning and we didn't know a thing about it! It made us sad that these traditions were being lost and at the same time lit a fire under us to learn as much as we could. We canned everything...pickles, corn, tomatoes, applesauce, apple pie filling, salsa, spaghetti sauce, strawberry jam, and beets. It was amazing, however, the pickles were not good. But I suppose I should correct myself here, they were not Molly's. It's been 11 years since that summer and I'll always remember it fondly as one of the best that I ever spent with a lot of laughter, learning, champagne and maybe a couple of burns.
One of the greatest takeaways is that everything has a season, our ancestors knew this intimately, and if you want to open a delicious jar of homemade pickles in February, you better know that pickling cucumber season around here is mid to late August, give or take.
I tried a great new farm stand this year, close to the new house, Miller's Farm Market on Bayview Road in Hamburg. They had pickling cucumbers, dill, garlic and as always a few more items that I didn't even know I needed.
First things first, when you are ready you need to give them a great soak. Over the years a trick that I learned from another amazing gardener/canner, Grandpa Andy (my sister-in-law's 98 year old independently living, gardening and still canning grandfather), is to soak them overnight in ice cold water to keep them crisp before you start processing them.
I just fill a sink and give them one last extra scrub before I start.
The next step is my annual trip down self-doubt lane. Every year is a mind over matter struggle between me and the mandolin!
I like my pickles sliced hamburger style and cannot achieve the same uniform thickness of a mandolin with a knife and the slicer on my food processor makes them too small. It's me and the mandolin, most of the time I win...it's true she has beaten me in the past...but it's worth it, look at the results!
Next step is to process the jars, lids and rings - this basically means you boil them for 15 minutes in a giant pot of water to sterilize them and get them ready to pack.
This is the science part, but what I love about pickling, is that it's part science/part creativity. The fun part comes next, packing the jars.
Here's what I do, and what I think was Molly's secret ingredient. Each jar gets 2 or 3 cloves of garlic depending on how big they are, a whole flower/head from the fresh dill plant...and 3 or 4 whole allspice berries depending on how big they are. Her pickles had this indistinguishable warmth to them that wasn't spicy and through trial and error, I think I finally figured it out! Then the fun part, smash them full of sliced pickles (no higher than 1/2 inch below the top of the jar where the seal will be) - just keep pushing, smashing and packing, more will fit than you'll think!
Now for the brine! For the last 8 years I've been using Grandpa Andy's brine recipe along with Molly's ingredients. The recipe is 3 quarts of water, 1 quart of vinegar (I do a 50/50 split between rice vinegar and cider vinegar), and 3/4 cup of canning salt. Bring it to a boil and pour it directly into each jar, same rule 1/2 inch from the top, but make sure there's enough to cover all of your pickles.
The last step is to clean off the top of each jar where the lid will seal to the glass and make sure its dry. Once your jars/lids are clean, put them on and tighten the rings on them as tight as possible so you can get ready to process them in your still boiling large pot of water!
Once each jar is sealed as tight as possible, use the jar lifters to submerge them into the boiling water and set a timer for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes in the water bath...you have pickles!
The only thing left to do is wait at least two weeks before they're ready to devour!!
I cannot guarantee that they will be your favorite pickle, but they are mine and I hope that you use the creativity part to play with the ingredients to make yours! More importantly, if you do make them the same way, you're sharing in the legacy of Molly Bonavito, a wife, mother, artist, cook, seamstress and all around Jill of all trades!
Please share your adventures with me, I can't wait to hear what makes your pickles special!!
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