When I was a kid, I wished I could capture a jar of summer air right along with the lightning bugs. A jar I could open at will, through our impossibly long winters, and just breathe it in, making it summer again.
Home pickles are about as close as Chicago can get to that: cheeky peaches, floating in cinnamon-spiced vinegar syrup … garlicky dills, crisp and sandwich-ready … watermelon pickles, clear and sticky-sweet as candy. You trust the ingredients — produce you grew, found at your farmers market or had delivered from the local farm. You love the taste — pickles pack a piquant flavor wallop. And you like what pickles represent: thrift, a locally grown health consciousness and a link to past connections that are real (like the grandma who put things by).
But how do you get the garden in the jar?
If you’re one of the many who didn’t have a canny Gram and missed out on high school home economics classes, you’ve probably been feeding pickle cravings with a trip to the ethnic deli or to restaurants owned by chefs known for their pickle prowess. Locally there’s Paul Virant of Vie in Western Springs and Susan Goss of West Town Tavern in Chicago. For these and other pickling chefs, guests’ raves over pickles are flattering.
“But honestly?” said chef Erick Simmons of MK. “People just don’t realize that most pickles are really easy to make.”
Following recipes from one of many recently published pickle books, home picklers can start a Saturday with a small amount of fresh, unblemished farmers market goods — plus a canning pot, canning rack, jars with two-piece lids, a funnel, and a tool to lift jars — and finish a few hours later with several jars of gorgeous pickles.
“You just have to get people over their initial fears about sanitation,” Virant said. Helping pickling wannabes over this hump, Virant teaches hands-on classes each year at Vie. (See story on Page 2.) Participants go home with knowledge, confidence and jars full of the produce they’ve pickled.
During a recent demo, Virant showed how to pickle spring onions. He toasted the spices (“to heighten the flavor”). He sterilized the jars, heated rings and lids that would top the jars, and prepped the onions, lopping off tops and bottoms, and fitting the onions into the clean jars. Heating the pickling brine — a mix of vinegar, water, salt and spices — to boiling was the last step before the hot liquid was poured over the onions (leaving 6 percent of head space, a little space at the top). Filled, sealed jars were then processed in a rolling hot water bath. Minutes later, the onions were shelved with jars of the more than 50 kinds of pickles Virant stores in a cool, dark pickle closet.
“You want to keep them out of the light and in an area where there won’t be big swings in temperature,” he said.
Getting comfortable
“Paul’s an inspiration,” said Tom Plonka, who has taken two pickling classes at Vie to help with produce his family gets each season from Angelic Organics farm. “At first, I was nervous about pickling, but Paul gave me insight into what to watch out for, so I’m comfortable with pickling now.” Plonka believes pickling will help him manage the “big surges of produce” he gets at peak season.
This year will be the first Plonka plunges into pickling in a big way. “I’m doing roasted beets for sure,” he said, “and zucchini, which is a bland vegetable that really perks up when you pickle it.”
Plonka and other new picklers represent a growing trend. “We are seeing an increased volume of interest from first-time picklers,” said Elizabeth Andress, director of the National Center for Home Food Processing and Preservation in Athens, Ga.
Linda Amendt, author of several preserving books and a frequent state-fair prize winner, agrees. “The perception that home canning is old-fashioned and a dying art could not be farther from the truth,” Amendt said. “Home canning is actually experiencing a resurgence in popularity.”
The new picklers
Beverly Alfeld, Crystal Lake-based author of the just-published “Pickles to Relish,” added, “Pickling is absolutely in!” A judge at the International Pickle Festival each year in Rosendale, N.Y., Alfeld has observed a growing number of Gen Xers — “vegans especially, and more guys, it’s not just girls anymore — who are really into pickling.”
And new picklers are pickling new things. “In the old days, you’d see the same standbys in competition every year,” Alfeld said. “But today people are pickling fiddlehead ferns, radishes, garlic, figs, mushrooms — you would be astonished.”
Two broad categories of pickles include those preserved with vinegar, and those preserved by long fermentation in salt, or brine. Of the two, vinegar pickles are easier to make, favored both by novices and experienced chefs who go through large quantities in their restaurants.
Melissa Graham, owner of Monogramme Events & Catering in Hinsdale, makes batches of spicy Kirby cucumber pickles once or twice a month as garnishes and side dishes. And Goss of West Town Tavern goes through two gallons of her Aunt Sally’s bread and butter pickles every week. Featured Tuesday nights on the restaurant’s Kobe beef burgers, the pickles are made with Kirby or English seedless cukes with yellow onions in a sweet syrup with mustard seed, celery seed and turmeric.
“I like the flavor and the novelty and the retro factor communicated with these,” Goss said.
Although a bit more challenging, long-fermented pickles are attracting some new home-pickling devotees. With these pickles, it’s the controlled fermentation process over a period of weeks that produces the distinct flavor. Vinegar and spices enhance it.
Again, classes and books are helping home cooks learn the technique of long-fermented pickling. Martha Bayne, who likes the taste and health benefits that come with long-fermented veggies, is into her second season of home-pickling cucumbers and daikon. She has taken classes from visiting fermentation guru Sandor Katz, author of self-published “Wild Fermentation.”
Vera Videnovich, who has a community supported agriculture farm in Bridgman, Mich., and an apartment in Hyde Park, grew up in a family that made slow-fermented mixed pickles and whole-head cabbage as dietary mainstays.
“The aroma and the taste!” Videnovich exclaimed. “There’s nothing better!”
Videnovich recently gave a talk on pickling peppers to Slow Food Chicago members. She also makes her own Macedonian-style pickled peppers, some of which she sells to customers in Logan Square and Hyde Park. Eventually, Videnovich hopes to teach interested members of her CSA about pickling techniques.
Small-batch pickling of any kind can help debunk the myth that pickling has to be a laborious project.
“As long as you have a small-quantity recipe to work with, you don’t have to make gallons of pickles, you can just do a jar or two,” said Drusilla Banks, food science and nutrition specialist with the University of Illinois extension.
The result? Your own local larder of sweets and sours, waiting to perk up otherwise ordinary plates. That, and a fresh “pop” of summer memories, released with the lift of each vacuum-sealed lid.
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How to can in a boiling water bath
Hot-water bath canning protects foods against molds and yeasts. The following instructions are from “The Ball Blue Book: Guide to Home Canning, Freezing and Dehydration.”
Fill a boiling-water canner (stockpot) half full with water. Heat water to a simmer (180 degrees). Sterilize jars by heating in the water for 10 minutes. Wash lids with hot soapy water. Place in a saucepan with water to cover; heat to a simmer (photo 1). Turn off heat. Leave in water 10 minutes. Do not boil. Remove one at a time.
Fill single jars at a time, leaving head space according to your recipe; wipe rims clean (photo 2). Top with lid; tighten band loosely (photo 3).
Position the canner rack above hot water in the canner. Using a jar-lifter, place filled jars onto rack immediately after each jar is filled (photo 4). Carefully lower rack into the water. The water level must cover the jars and two-piece caps by 1 to 2 inches. Add boiling water, if needed. Put the canner lid in place. Adjust heat to medium-high, and heat the water to a hard-rolling boil. Reduce heat to maintain a gentle-rolling boil. Set a timer for the number of minutes required for processing the product, about 10 minutes for pints or half-pints and about 30 minutes for quarts. Turn off heat and remove canner lid.
Using a jar lifter, remove the jars from the canner and set them on a towel to cool. Leave 1 to 2 inches of space between jars. Allow jars to cool naturally 12 to 24 hours before checking for a seal. Do not retighten bands. Remove bands for long-term storage.
— Chicago Tribune
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Pickling resources
Once you’ve got fresh, local ingredients handy, what else do you need to pickle at home?
Equipment
Many department and kitchenware stores, as well as online sites such as Amazon, sell home-canning equipment and/or kits. Many supermarkets also will be selling items during the local harvest season.
*Canning jars
*Canning lids, with rings
*Ladle
*Jar lifter
*Knife, for releasing air bubbles
*Canner or stockpot
*Canning rack (metal disk or basket to place inside the stockpot to hold the jars in place so they do not chip)
Cookbooks
“The Joy of Pickling,” by Linda Ziedrich
“Pickles to Relish,” by Beverly Alfeld (Pelican Publishing, $24.95)
“Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving”
“Blue Ribbon Preserves: Secrets to Award-Winning Jams, Jellies, Marmalades & More,” by Linda Amendt
“So Easy to Preserve,” The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Service, soeasytopreserve.com (at presstime, this book was out of stock but additional copies were expected to be available)
— Monica Kass Rogers
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Pickling precautions
To ensure food safety, Drusilla Banks of the University of Illinois Extension urges all picklers to stick with proven recipes, and strictly adhere to directions.
“There’s science involved with making pickles, so you really do need to follow the directions,” Banks said. “Don’t change the ratio of the ingredients, don’t cut things into chunks if the recipe calls for thin slices, always leave at least 6 percent head space, and carefully follow the sterilization and processing instructions.”
Also: Using agave nectar or honey instead of white sugar may seem healthier, but switching sweeteners in a recipe can change the pH levels, which could be dangerous; acid content needs to be exact for food safety.
“Look for a recipe that explains the adjustments that need to be made if you want to use something other than what is specified,” Banks said.
And take caution with old recipes. “Pickle recipes are popular to pass down from generation to generation,” said Elizabeth Andress, director of the National Center for Home Food Processing and Preservation, “but I recommend using up-to-date reference materials to ensure safety.”
— M.K.R.
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A note about nutritional information
With every recipe published in Good Eating, we provide the nutritional information, calculated for us by a registered dietitian. However, the absorption of salt and other ingredients during pickling is difficult to estimate. Rather than reporting inaccurate information, we are not providing nutritional data for these pickling recipes.
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Dill pickled baby tomatoes
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 35 minutes
Yield: 3 pints
From chef Paul Virant of Vie restaurant.
2 1/2 cups water
2 cups Champagne vinegar
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 pint baby or cherry tomatoes
16 dill sprigs
2 tablespoons each: dill seeds, peppercorns
1. Combine the water, vinegar, salt and sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat; heat to a boil.
2. Place 3 clean pint jars and tops in a stockpot; cover with water. Heat to a boil over medium-high heat; remove from heat. Let stand in hot water until ready to use; remove and drain.
3. Divide the tomatoes equally among the jars. Divide the dill sprigs, seeds and peppercorns equally among the jars. Ladle the hot vinegar liquid over the tomatoes, leaving 1/4-inch space at the top. Press a rubber spatula down the sides of the jars to make sure they are packed full. Wipe the rims of the jars with a damp, clean cloth. Cover with the tops; close the jars with the rings but do not screw them tightly.
4. Process in a water bath 30 minutes; let cool. Check lids for a seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex when center is pressed. Remove rings, if desired. Store in cool, dark place up to one year.
Spicy pickles
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Yield: 6 quarts
Adapted from a recipe by Melissa Graham of Monogramme Events & Catering in Hinsdale.
8 pounds pickling cucumbers, such as Kirby
6 large cloves garlic, peeled
6 serrano chilies, split
1 bunch dill
12 cups water
2 each: bay leaves, cloves
2/3 cup each: cider vinegar, sugar, coarse salt
2 teaspoons each: whole mustard seeds, celery seeds, dill seeds, whole peppercorns
2 cloves
1 teaspoon whole allspice
1. Evenly distribute the cucumbers, garlic, chilies and dill sprigs among 6 sterilized quart-size canning jars (see sidebar).
2. Combine the water, bay leaves, cloves, vinegar, sugar, salt, mustard seeds, celery seeds, dill seeds, peppercorns, cloves and allspice in a stockpot; heat to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook until the sugar and salt dissolve, about 5 minutes.
3. Strain cooking liquid through a strainer; divide cooking liquid evenly among the jars, leaving 1-inch space. Fasten the lids tightly.
4. Process in a water bath 8 minutes; let cool. Check lids for a seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed. Remove rings, if desired. Store in a cool, dark place up to one year.
Pan-seared halibut, spinach, radishes, spring onion and pickled tomato vinaigrette
Preparation time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
Chef Paul Virant of Vie restaurant prepares this dish with local produce, including his own dill-pickled baby tomatoes as part of the vinaigrette.
Pickled tomato vinaigrette:
1/2 cup pickled tomatoes plus 1/4 cup pickling
liquid, see recipe
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
6 radishes, thinly sliced
4 green onions, thinly sliced
Fish:
4 halibut fillets, about 5 ounces each
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons grapeseed oil or olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon chopped fresh herbs, such as parsley, chives and chervil
Spinach:
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 ounces fresh spinach
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
1. Roughly chop the tomatoes; place in a bowl. Add the pickling liquid; whisk in the olive oil. Add the radishes and green onions; set aside.
2. Season the fish with salt and pepper to taste; set aside. Heat the oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat; add the fish. Cook, turning once until lightly brown on both sides, about 2 1/2 minutes per side. Add the butter and herbs; cook, swirling skillet, until fragrant and butter melts, about 2 minutes. Baste the fish with the butter mixture; remove from skillet. Set aside; keep warm.
3. For spinach, heat the olive oil in the skillet over medium-high heat; add the spinach. Cook, stirring, until the spinach wilts, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste; divide among four plates. Place the fish over the spinach; top with pickled tomato vinaigrette.
Nutrition information per serving (with 2 tablespoons vinaigrette): 506 calories, 66% of calories from fat, 37 g fat, 7 g saturated fat, 73 mg cholesterol, 3 g carbohydrates, 40 g protein, 799 mg sodium, 1 g fiber
Bread and butter pickles
Preparation time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Standing time: 3 hours
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Cooling time: 30 minutes
Yield: 12 pints
Chef/co-owner Susan Goss of West Town Tavern serves these pickles, a recipe from her Aunt Sally, on Kobe beef burgers.
6 pounds pickling cucumbers, such as Kirby, cut into 1/4-inch slices
6 Spanish onions, thinly sliced
1 cup coarse salt
Ice cubes
10 cups each: sugar, cider vinegar
1 tablespoon each: celery seed, mustard seed, ground turmeric
1. Place the cucumbers and onions in a large bowl; sprinkle with the salt. Toss. Cover with water; add as many ice cubes as will fit. Let stand at room temperature 3 hours.
2. About 30 minutes before the cucumbers and onions are ready, combine the sugar, vinegar, celery seed, mustard seed and turmeric in a large stockpot; heat to a boil over medium-high heat. Lower the heat to a simmer; cook, stirring occasionally, until syrupy, about 30 minutes.
3. Drain the cucumbers; rinse well with cold water. Drain; set aside. Place 12 clean pint jars and tops in a large kettle or stockpot; cover with water. Heat to a boil over medium-high heat; remove from heat. Let stand in hot water until ready to use.
4. Add the cucumbers to the sugar-vinegar mixture; stir well. Cook over medium-high heat almost to a boil (do not boil); remove from the heat. Fill the jars with the cucumbers and onions, packing the jars to the top of the neck, leaving 1/2-inch head space. Ladle the liquid over the cucumbers to just cover, leaving 1/2-inch head space. Press a rubber spatula down the sides of the jars to make sure they are packed full. Wipe the rims of the jars with a damp, clean cloth. Cover with the tops; close the jars with the rings but do not screw them tightly.
5. Process in a water bath 15 minutes; let cool. Check lids for a seal after 24 hours. Lids should not flex up and down when center is pressed. Remove rings, if desired. Store in a cool, dark place up to one year.
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ctc-goodeating@tribune.com
See also “Learn to pickle,” Good Eating section, Page 2
