Like so many of us we have backyard gardens producing fruit and vegetables. This week I was fortunate enough to get 5 cucumbers in one day. Preserving a crop is something I love to do and these bread and butter pickles make great presents now that it is coming up to Christmas.
Our cucumbers have been our number one provider over the last two weeks. Every thing else is just coming along now the tomatoes are ripening, zucchini’s getting bigger, okra and beans are flowering. We planted the Lebanese cucumber variety, I think that they have a greater flavour and go especially nice in my new favourite drink. Gin and Tonic with a slice or two of cucumber which just adds an element of summer. It is also very refreshing on a hot afternoon.
As I made these pickles a week ago, we left them for a couple of days before eating them. There has been much discussion over the appearance of them in our house. Roy thinks that they need to be crinkle cut – today we are going out to buy a special knife or device to do this as we are about to make batch No.2 of these pickles. However I like them thin and delicate – they still have their crunch yet not to over the top. Batch No.2 will be thicker and crinklier, at this stage I am not sure that I will like them as much but I guess I will only have to wait a few days to find out what I prefer.
Do you like thick cut pickles and do you like the appearance of them being crinkle cut? I would love to hear your thought about your pickling methods.
- 5 large Lebanese cucumbers, trimmed, cut into 5mm-thick slices
- 1 medium brown onion, thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp 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.
- 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.
12 Responses
I’ve never made my own pickles but would love to! I wish I were growing cucumbers so that I could pickle some!
I LOVE pickles. I just recently made a batch myself and thought I need to slice these up for burgers. Yours look FANTASTIC!
Gosh, I love pickles, and these look so terrific! Up here we coming into winter (supposedly; today it’ll be over 70 degrees F!). I am missing my garden. But in a few more months I’ll be planting seeds! Anyway, good post – thanks.
Love love love B&B pickles but have never thought to make my own. And I have to say I’m with Roy on this one – thick cut and crinkled is much more awesome when it comes to texture, but maybe that’s just because they’re the ones I grew up with.
I’ve never made pickles. I’ve just got into making tomato chutney and cherry jam the other day. These look great Lizzie.
Pickles are easy Catherine, you should definitely give it a go.
OMG everyone MUST make this recipe!!! Lizzie gave me a jar of her pickles and honestly, the entire jar was gone just by me saying to my inlaws “would you like some pickles with your egg and bacon pie for lunch?”
They ate the whole jar save one tiny forkful that I grabbed as I was putting them on the table. I can’t wait to make these!!
Thanks Maureen. Glad you liked them, we have now done a total of 5 batches and the last batch was 3 kilos of cucumbers. Will have to drop another one of these off to you soon.
Yet again i come to your recipe for bread and butter cucumbers to deal with the glut we are experiencing and yet again we know we will enjoy them
I followed your recipe a couple of weeks ago, just wanted to say thank you!! Thank you!
They were a hit. xx
That’s awesome! We are still making them and share the recipe with everyone once they taste them.