Bread and Butter Pickles

Okay, yes I bought more cucumbers. After all my complaining before, you would think that I had enough. Well, the eight quarts I bought previously were all too small to slice properly for sweet pickles. As baby dills, they were perfect, but I had to wait a couple of weeks for their larger brother to arrive.

I only bought a single two-quart basic, which turned out to be more than enough for six pints of pickles. The process is a bit more complex than straight hot- or cold-packing. The cucumbers and onions have to be sliced, mixed with salt and allowed to sit for a few hours. Traditionalist recipes call for overnight brining. My Bernardin recipe called for 2 hours, whereas the recipe on pre-fab sweet pickling spice mixes is only 30 minutes. I figured that taking the middle road was best.

And by the way, how many of you thought that pickles had salt in them? After all, you see "pickling salt" available at the stores, but it seems like its primary purpose is to be used BEFORE the pickling process to draw some of the liquid out of the pickles. I have yet to try to brine-cure pickles (the same way they make sauerkraut) but I'm curious to see how they turn out.

After soaking, they're warmed in a hot vinegar bath and packed. As you can see from the colour, tumeric takes centre stage in this recipe and I'll be trying to get the stains off my countertops for a long time to come. But I ended up with six perfect pints of pickles. Oh, and this time I also added Pickle Crisp, Bernardin's brand name for calcium chloride that is added to maintain the texture of the pickles. I didn't use any of this in my dills, so it will be interesting to see how they compare.