Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Dill pickle chips

I have no picture to accompany this post, but you all know what sliced cucumbers, and pickles, look like, anyway, right?

I've been using my mandoline in the kitchen lately (story of why to follow, assuming I ever catch up on all the posts I haven't written this summer), so I sliced the 3 lbs. or so of pickling cukes I got at the Waltham Farmer's Market nice and thin.

I threw in 2 or 3 crushed garlic cloves as well as a bunch of dill flowers from my wildly overgrown patch of dill (I planted six plants this spring, so when they went to seed, they went with a vengeance!)

Here is the recipe I used for the brine, from one of my new favorite blogs. I made about 1.25 quarts of brine, which was a lot, but I've had trouble in the past with lacto-fermentation and liquid evaporation. It's much better to have too much brine than too little.

If the temperature hadn't been quite so extreme, I think I'd have left them out for another day or two to ferment before packing them into jars and fridgeing them. It was awfully hot, though, so I went with 48 hours.

(Thanks, Susan, for the nudge I needed to get this up here!)

3 comments:

susan said...

Thanks for this! Could you can them for longer storage, do you think?

Janice said...

tell me more about your mandoline? I have resisted buying one because the reviews seem to be mixed. Also...I love fresh dill pickles. I really want to make them...but I will go easy on myself if it doesn't happen until next summer. Or maybe even the summer after that!

Julia said...

I'm glad you liked the recipe! I've already made two batches this summer. Alas, the second batch wasn't as good because the cucumbers (from my garden) had gotten too big and watery.

I wanted to can them, but I think I need pickling lime to help keep them crunchy.