Garlic Pickles
Submitted by ladybug
Old-world fermented garlic pickles with cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, and celery in a salt brine with mustard seed, peppercorns, and bay. Crunchy lacto-fermented crock pickles in 10 days.
YIELD
60 servingsPREP
40 minCOOK
0 minREADY
10 daysThis is proper old-world barrel pickling, the kind eastern European grandmothers have been making in basements for generations. Not quick refrigerator pickles, not vinegar canning, but full lacto-fermentation in a salt brine where the vegetables ferment into complex, sour, crunchy pickles over about 10 days.
What sets this batch apart is the variety. Cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, and celery all go in together along with plenty of garlic, layered so no single vegetable sits entirely next to its own kind. Each vegetable picks up flavor from all the others during the long salt cure.
Mustard seeds, peppercorns, and bay leaves add the spice notes that turn these from plain brine pickles into something aromatic and complex. The salt ratio (one heaping tablespoon per liter of water) is the key number. Too much salt kills fermentation, too little and things can spoil.
Keep the vegetables submerged under the brine with clean wood sticks or glass bottles, and taste the liquid every couple of days to adjust salt as the vegetables absorb it.
Chef Tips
- Use non-iodized salt, kosher or pickling salt. Iodized table salt can cloud the brine and inhibit good fermentation bacteria.
- Submerge everything completely. Any vegetable poking above the brine can develop mold and ruin the whole batch.
- Roll or shake the crock daily for the first week. This keeps the salt evenly distributed and prevents dead spots.
- Taste along the way. If the brine tastes too weak, add a tablespoon of salt at a time. Kirby cucumbers especially absorb salt fast.
Variations
- Add dill heads and dill seed for a classic kosher-dill direction.
- Toss in sliced fresh hot peppers for a spicier batch.
- Include peeled whole beets for a gorgeous pink-tinged brine that stains everything beautifully.
Ingredients
Directions
These are the approximate ingredients you would need to fill up a 10 litre barrel.
Peel garlic and cut each clove in half.
Peel carrots.
Wash vegetables.
Cut cabbage, carrots and celery into quarters.
Break apart cauliflower.
Leave cucumbers or tomatoes whole.
With cabbage, discard outer leaves and cut off the hard part at the base.
With the cauliflower, leave a little it of the leaves on for taste but discard the hard part of the stem.
Mix vegetables in layers so all of one kind is not next to the other.
Put in the vegetables, garlic, then vegetables again, and so on.
Add 1 heaping tablespoon of salt for each litre of hot water that you will add to the barrel.
After the barrel is full with the vegetables and water, add 5 more tablespoons of salt on top, along with 2 tablespoons of mustard seeds, 2 tablespoons peppercorns and 4 bay leaves.
You can use a cheescloth bag to put the mustard seeds and peppercorns in or just throw them in loosely.
Use clean wood sticks or empty glass bottles on top to hold down all vegetables under the water, if necessary.
It’s important for them to be covered at all times.
Mix the barrel (if it’s large, it can be rolled on the floor!) when done and shake it again each day for the next few days.
It’s important to make sure it’s being mixed well.
It should be ready in about 10 days to eat.
Kirby cucumbers may take a few days longer.
Taste the liquid after the first couple of days, as you may need to add an additional tablespoon of salt or two.
It’s important not to add too much salt in the beginning but to keep the balance constant and to add alittle more as the salt is absorbed.
In our case, we added 3 tablespoons of salt on the sixth day, but this could change according to what you put in and the size of your barrel.
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