Ever find yourself sitting in front of the computer at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, penning a passionate post on Chowhound about pickle brine vinegar-water ratios and the pros and cons of the slow-pasteurization method in relation to crunch preservation? Blame it on my first batch of pickles, which tasted like a lethal vinegar bomb. I’ve been chasing the twin dragons of perfect brine and perfect crunch ever since.
I like the summertime contrast of flip-flopping from sweet ‘n’ fruity jams to sour-salty-savoury relishes and pickles. My latest venture into the latter: garlic-dill spears. Had a bunch of dill to use up. I came across a very simple recipe on epicurious.com for “fast favourite garlic dill pickles,” taken from the book The Complete Book of Year-Round Small-Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp and Margaret Howard.
But there were only smallish jars on hand and these were some fat cukes so I thought of slicing them into spears and combining the recipe with this one from Canadian Living magazine for garlic dill spears. And I used the low-temperature pasteurization method (processed the jars at a simmer – 80-85 C or 180-185F – for 30 minutes rather than in boiling water for 10 minutes) in an effort to maintain the crunch.
Garlic-dill spears
About 12 pickling cucumbers (3-4 inches long)
Ice cubes
2.5 cups white vinegar
2.5 cups water
2.5 tbsp pickling salt
5 or so fistfuls of dill (one for each jar)
5 or so garlic cloves, sliced in half (two halves for each jar)
1 tbsp black peppercorns
Scrub clean then cut thin slices off both ends of the cucumbers, place them in a bowl, toss with ice cubes and cover with water. Put in the refrigerator for at least two hours, up to four. Drain cucumbers, cut into spears.
Combine vinegar, water, salt and peppercorns, bring to a boil, then simmer for five minutes. Distribute dill and garlic spears into jars (I wash and boil my jars for 10 minutes to sterilize them) and pack in the spears. I like to put half of the garlic and dill, then the cucumbers, then remaining garlic and dill.
Pour brine over cucumbers, leaving a half-inch (1 cm) head space. Process jars for 30 minutes at a simmer (about 82-ish C or 180-ish F). A candy or deep-fry thermometer helps with making sure the temp stays at this level. Let the pickles hang out in a cool, dark place for at least two weeks before opening.
3 Comments
Hi Genevieve:
This reminds me of your great grandmother’s kitchen in the fall. She had a cold room where she stored all her jams and pickles etc. She loved dill. I can still smell her kitchen when she made her dill pickles.
I hope I get to try them soon.
Mom
Hi there. How did the pickles turn out? My husband grew up in Manitoba, and his mother still cans. He has just started the canning craze, but we weren’t pleased with the pickles we made. This recipe sounds like a winner.
Hi there!
Yeah, the flavour was great. I’ve now learned that this is how I like my brine, with a 50-50 water-vinegar ratio. Another recipe that I tried was 4-1 water-vinegar and it just wasn’t sour enough for my liking.
As for the texture of these, since they were spears, they didn’t stay very crunchy. Next time I will try this recipe with whole cucumbers and use the slow pasteurization method, which I do find maintains the crunch in whole cukes.
Which recipe did you use and in what way did you find it disappointing?
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