Remember this blog entry about homemade pickles? Well, sometimes I make something from scratch and then can’t fathom how I would ever go back to eating the stuff from the grocery store (see previous post about ice cream). Well, alas….the dill pickle experiment (at least this round) was not one of those. My response after tasting them, first after a few hours and then after a couple of days was….”eh”. Didn’t blow my mind. Regardless, here’s my photographic evidence of the experience.
Cut and ready to go into the salt.
This is after an hour in the kosher salt. I tasted one at this point and it was salty goodness. Check out the color difference after sitting in the salt. Starting to look more like the pickles we’re used to seeing.
Here’s the “brew” that the pickles get cooked in after sitting in the salt. Water, sugar, dill seed, onions, and garlic.
Here’s the finished product – the pickles were cooked for 20 minutes in the brew and then cooled. As you can see, the color is not super appetizing. The final taste was less salty and briny and more sweet than I would have liked. Didn’t have that dill flavor I was expecting. They did still have crunch which was nice but the flavor didn’t knock my socks off.
So, first attempt at homemade dill pickles was kind of a bust. My friend Shari has a connection to get me the recipe for her dad’s famous pickles. That will be attempt number two. Stay tuned.
Meridith
3 comments:
I recall that Alton Brown (Good Eats) did a really cool pickle show. Here's the transcript from the fan site American Pickle and I'm wondering if the pickle brew didn't need more acid... like vinegar of one sort or another? I'm interested in the firecrackers (spicy carrots) and the pickled cauliflower too. mmmmmm
So I went to the Farmers Market this morning and met a very cool Air Force Vet who is also a gardener and sells his seedlings for various vegetables and plants. I bought 20 cucumber seedlings with the warning that I would yield so many cucumbers, I better like pickles too because I would have so many, I'd need to find other uses for them. So I am here to guinea pig!! Once I get my crop started, I am going to try some pickle recipes. Natural small garden grown cucumbers that turn into homemade, home grown pickles! YUM!! Thanks for the idea Geek...umm..I mean, FoodGeek! :)
This weekend I asked my wife to buy me some sliced jalepanos for my nachos. (sometimes I need nachos!) She said the local Vons priced my favored "Mrs Renfros" brand at over $5 - EXTORTION
This got me thinking... a jar of sliced jalepenos has got to be about the same difficulty as dill pickles... right? Maybe I could get a recipe idea for Father's Day???
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