Recipe: Riffs on Armenian Pickles or Mixed Pickled Veggies

There’s not much that the Accidental Locavore won’t attempt food and cooking wise, but pickling, and canning scare me. Last Sunday, I decided to confront that fear, and make the Armenian pickles that my mother used to make. Armed with a dozen jars, I called mom and got a couple of her recipes. This is what I did:

• First I cut up some pickling cucumbers and cauliflower that were in a recent farmbasket.
• They soaked in salted water (brine) for 2 hours (while I ran out to get the jars).
• Each jar gets a clove of garlic, and a 1″ piece of hot red pepper (I used serrano chiles since I had them), and a small handful of coriander seeds. I also had a little pickling spice so I tossed that in too.
• Fill the jars with your vegetables. I had a lot of veggies from the farmbasket, so I used the cucumbers, and cauliflower, some green beans trimmed, strips of yellow peppers, carrots, and pearl onions. The original recipe also calls for green tomatoes, but since I was trying to use what I had…
• Top the jars with a sprig of fresh dill
• Heat 3 quarts of water, 1 quart of vinegar (I used 2/3 white vinegar, and 1/3 cider vinegar), and 1 cup of kosher salt to a simmer. Remove from the heat and fill the jars to the top.
• Let them sit for 3 weeks.

I also put the sealed jars in a water bath, brought that to a simmer and let them simmer for about 10 minutes, but my mother later told me that wasn’t necessary. I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks how they turned out. Have you ever made pickles? How do you do them?