Little yellow courgette.
After a trip to Whole Foods yesterday I found myself in possession of a couple of pretty yellow courgettes. But what to do with them?
I couldn’t ‘just’ stick them in my courgette fail safe dish – carbonara, I wanted to do something a bit different with them, and as I’ve not made my own pickles before I figured today was the perfect day to have a bash.
I was really surprised at how easy they were to do – though here’s a tip you’ll want to take note of; while you’re cooking up your pickling liquor make sure you have a door open or your extractor fan on, the mixture has some poke!
Following a standard recipe for the vinegar to sugar ratio, I added some aromatics to suit the veggie in question – red onion, black and yellow mustard seeds, dill seed and dried chillies (just two) for a bit of warmth to the tart liquor.
I’m looking forward to adding them to all kinds of meals. On Pastrami, Swiss cheese and rye sandwiches for one, on salmon with potato salad and watercress for another, and maybe, just maybe stuffed inside cheese and ham toasties for extra indulgent measure.
It’s just a shame they need a couple of days in the fridge for the flavours mingle and pickle up. As I’ve said before, patience is not a virtue I possess.
For two jars of pickles
- 500g yellow courgettes – sliced on a mandolin around 2mm thick. If you’re doing it with a knife be careful
- 1 small red onion – sliced as above
- 3 tbsp non-iodised salt – I used Saxa
- 1 tsp yellow mustard seed
- 1 tsp black mustard seed
- 1 tsp dill seed
- 2 small dried chillies, crushed
- 350ml cider vinegar
- 150ml rice vinegar
- 140g golden caster sugar
- 2 jars – sterilised
Method
- Take the cut onion and courgettes and mix them together in a large bowl, sprinkle them with 3 tbsp salt and cover with ice cubes and water and leave for an hour. While they’re sitting, make the pickling liquor... and open the kitchen door/stick your extractor fan on!
- Into a saucepan place the vinegars, chillies, dill, mustard seeds and sugar. Bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes, then turn the heat off and leave to cool.
- Once the courgettes and onions have been in for an hour, drain them and lay them out on a couple of layers of kitchen paper. Top with a couple more layers of kitchen paper and press gently – this is to remove as much moisture as possible from them.
- Layer the courgettes and onions up in the sterilised jars until they reach the top and top with the cooled pickling liquor. Seal and place in the fridge – waiting a couple of days before eating them so the pickley flavours really get to know each other.
- Stored like this in the fridge they should last a few weeks or so.