I love bread and butter pickles. But the general kind of pickle, made with vinegar, lacks the digestive enzymes and probiotics of the fermented ones.
Here is a recipe for how to make these delicious and helpful pickles.
You will need:
3 medium cucumbers
½ cup thinly sliced onion
1 grape leaf
½ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 tablespoons home made whey
1 tablespoon sea salt or Himalayan pink
½ cup honey or maple syrup
1 heaping tablespoon whole celery seeds
1 tablespoon yellow or brown mustard seeds
1 teaspoon turmeric
½ cup quality water
1 wide mouth quart mason jar
1 Ziploc freezer pint
Recipe direction:
Wash cucumbers and grape leaf and place the grape leaf along the inside of the canning jar. The presence of this leaf helps the cucumbers to stay crisp.
Slice onions into small half-circles and cut cucumbers into thin slices.
Place a few cucumbers in the bottom of the jar, followed by some onion bits. Repeat until the jar is almost full leaving about 2 inches of head space—or air—at the top.
In a small bowl, mix all the other ingredients. Pour over the cucumbers until 1/3 is missing. If the liquid level in the jar isn't quite 1/3, add more water until it is. Repeat the process twice more until there is about 1 ½ inches of head space at the top. The cucumbers should be about ½ inch below the top of the liquid. Put a small amount of water in the Ziploc bag. Place this on top of the cucumbers to keep them submerged under the juice.
Screw the cap on tightly and leave it on the counter for 2 or 3 days to ferment before storing it in the refrigerator.
Have you ever fermented? You may also enjoy learning how to make fruit kvass, nature's soda!
Let me know if you have any questions.
Introduction to Preserving
Freezing
Making Quick Pickles
Making Quick Jams: Refrigerator or Freezer Jam
Water-Bath Canning
How to Can Tomatoes
How to Can Pickles
How to Can Jam and Jelly
Pressure Canning
Drying
Salting and Brining
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Since Ellie's comment hasn't been answered yet, I wanted to volunteer the information in case anyone else was concerned. I've got a real passion for food science!
Not all fermentation requires yeast. This is an example of lactic acid fermentation. Rather than yeast, it is primarily the lactobacillus bacteria in the whey eating the sugar and doing the flavoring. With proper preparation, this recipe should be completely free of yeast, barring contamination from the air. Your whey should be fresh and not sitting exposed on the counter to gather yeast. Wash the produce well. Screw the jar lid on tightly, etc...
As to the honey being antibacterial: That's only true of straight up honey, not aqueous solutions or other diluted mixtures of it. All sugars are antibacterial in high enough concentration, but not this one, and especially not for the friendly bacteria in the whey that LOVE sugar. It's also got a tiny bit of hydrogen peroxide, but hydrogen peroxide is a pretty weak sanitizing agent. The small amount in the honey added to the recipe will quickly break down into water and oxygen in the brine, the latter of which will rise above the baggie of water. The beneficial probiotics will be absolutely fine.
Thanks for the recipe! Looking forward to making my own. I don't have access to grape leaves, though. Hope they don't turn out too mushy without.
I have concerns about using honey in any ferment because it is antibacterial in nature. I'm a bit worried that honey would result in feeding all the yeast and killing all the beneficial bacteria. I also understand that will sauerkraut, there are three distinct stages of ferment, the first being a yeast stage, and the last being the stage that results in the good bacteria. That takes weeks, so I'm wondering what sort of bacteria are resulting from this particular ferment over a three-day period? Being someone who is extremely sensitive to yeast but absolutely needs the benefits of probiotic pickling, I would need to know what I would be growing before I could try this.
Hi, I am just wondering how long this will last out of the fridge unopened?
To ensure that they stay safely edible, we recommend keeping these pickles refrigerated.
I made these and love the flavor. I did put in a grape leave (and a bay leaf) but they are mushy. I did ferment for over a week as I left town however; could this have caused the mush? Also can I try this recipe with whole pickles and then cut when they are fermented to avoid mushiness?
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