Favorite Mustard Pickles
Classic yellow mustard pickles with cucumbers, gherkins, pearl onions, cauliflower, and red peppers in a turmeric-mustard brine. Old-school preserving-kettle recipe that stocks a pantry.
YIELD
6 servingsPREP
20 minCOOK
0 minREADY
1 hrsMustard pickles are a British and North American preserving tradition that goes back generations. A big-batch mixed pickle brined overnight in salt, then cooked in a sweet-sour mustard-turmeric sauce that coats every vegetable in its signature golden glow.
The overnight salt draw is the technique that makes or breaks this recipe. Sprinkling pickling salt over chopped vegetables pulls out water via osmosis, firming the flesh so pickles stay crisp after cooking. Skip this step and you’ll wind up with mushy, watery jars.
The mustard sauce itself is a quick thickener pulled straight from old preserves manuals: flour, dry mustard, turmeric, and celery salt whisked into vinegar and cooked until it coats the vegetables. The flour gives the sauce cling. Skip it and the pickles sit in thin liquid instead of being bathed in yellow glaze.
Kitchen Tips
- Use only pickling or canning salt. Iodized table salt clouds the brine and can turn the pickles dark.
- Use apple cider vinegar with at least 5 percent acidity for safe preservation. Lower acidity vinegars are not safe for canning.
- Sterilize jars and lids before filling. Fill hot, seal immediately, and let the lids ping as they cool to confirm the seal.
- Wait at least two weeks before opening a jar. The flavors marry and deepen significantly during that time.
Variations
- Add a handful of small green tomatoes or zucchini chunks to the mix for a slightly different regional character.
- Stir in a tablespoon of whole mustard seeds alongside the dry mustard for extra texture and pop.
- Include a few thin slices of fresh ginger in each jar for a warmer, slightly spicy edge.
Ingredients
Directions
Finely chop or grind, through the medium blade of a food chopper, the cucumbers, onions, and red pepper, and put each ground vegetable into a separate bowl.
Rinse the food chopper between each vegetable.
Also put into separate bowls, the gherkins, white onions, and the cauliflower flowerets.
Sprinkle each vegetable with the salt, using about ¼ cup to each bowl.
Cover the gherkins, pickling onions, and cauliflower with cold water and let all the vegetables stand overnight.
In the morning, drain the chopped vegetables in a colander; drain the whole vegetables and dry them with a towel.
Mix the vegetables in a preserving kettle, stir in the sugar and 6 cups of the vinegar, and bring the mixture to a boil.
Combine the flour, mustard, tumeric and celery salt and mix them to a smooth paste with the remaining vinegar.
Stir the paste gradually into the vegetables and continue to stir until the sauce is slightly thickened.
Turn the pickles into jars and seal at once.
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