Do you love bread and butter pickles? Before last Christmas my friend Lizzie Moult from Strayed from the Table came to visit and we made a broccoli quiche together. I love quiche; she’d never made one and it was so much fun to cook with another food lover.
The best thing about the day were the bread and butter pickles that she’d brought me as a gift. I put them in the refrigerator because John’s parents were coming for a visit and I knew how much my father-in-law loves pickles.
They arrived in the morning and I put out all sorts of meats, salad, bread and chutneys, etc for lunch and I put out a small bowl of Lizzie’s pickles. Before I could get the butter on my bread, John’s dad had eaten one slice of pickle and said, “Maureen, did you make these? They’re so good.”
I tasted one and had to agree. They were crisp, sweet, tart and wonderful. Just what you want with a sandwich.
We left the pickle conversation and moved on to how was the flight, what was going on back home and how was the rest of the family. It wasn’t until after lunch when I was putting everything away that I noticed that not only was the pickle bowl empty, John had refilled it with the entire jar of pickles. They’d eaten the lot!
When I told Lizzie she said the recipe was already on her blog and I determined to make some before they left. Okay, it’s been 6 months but the determination was there the whole time, I promise. I’m just slack but I did get them made and mine are as good as hers.
I was given some Australian native pepperberries and that’s what I used in my pickles but ordinary black peppercorns will work just fine.
I sliced the cucumbers thinly like Lizzie did and then I tried some thicker ones. I liked the thinner ones better. These bread and butter pickles are as good as any my father made when I was growing up.
There are lots of bread and butter pickle recipes on the net but I think I’ve found my favorite.
- 5 large Lebanese cucumbers, trimmed, cut into thin slices (use a mandolin)
- 1 medium brown onion, thinly sliced
- 3 tbsp kosher salt
- 375ml (1 ½ cup) apple cider vinegar
- 215gm (1 cup) sugar
- 2 tsp yellow mustard seeds
- 2 bay leaves
- ½ tsp coriander seeds
- ¼ tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp black peppercorns
- Place the cucumber, onion and salt into a bowl stirring the salt to coat the vegetables. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for 2- 3 hours. Rinse the cucumber mixture in a colander and pat dry with paper towel to remove all excess water.
- In a medium to large pot place the vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds, bay leaves, coriander seeds, turmeric and black pepper corns. Stir for 3 minutes or until the sugar dissolves over a medium heat. Add the cucumber mixture and bring to a simmer. Once it reaches a nice simmer, the pickles are ready to put in jars.
- Remove bay leaves.
- Transfer the mixture into sterilised glass jars and seal, set aside for a week to develop the flavours.
- Keep jars in a cool dark place, they will last at least a year. Once opened refrigerate them.
