Bread and Butter pickles

80+ frickin' degrees and I had to make a batch of pickles. All that boiling water and steam - I must be nuts. Probably sweated off a couple pounds. Of course, this morning they came right back.

But I like this style of pickles, so I do a small batch every year or so. DH doesn't, although whenever he tries one, he says "Hey, these are good!". And promptly forgets, so they're still mine, all mine. He'll have hamburger dills on hamburgers and eat about a half a kosher dill if it's to the side of a grilled cheese sandwich, but he's mostly a pickle-free zone.

B&Bs are sweet-sour with spices, including turmeric. They're a vinegar and sugar pickle, not a brined pickle. (Someday I'm going to master the brined kosher dill, I swear I am. I have no problem with cornichons, but other brined pickles turn weird and soft for me, no matter what recipe I follow. I mean, they worked for the Lincoln Del, so why can't I do it?)

A little over 4# of veg got me 4 full pints and about 1/4 c leftover veg with very scant syrup. Rather than make more syrup, I just ate it. Hot. It was delicious.

If anybody's as crazy as I am, here's the recipe.

BREAD AND BUTTER PICKLES
Spicy or not. Also Pickle Relish. Also Variations. General Rule recipe.

See Notes: Smaller amounts give about 4 pints, larger give about 8 pints

Ingredients:
4# (8#) pickling cucumbers; about 4” long is best size
1/4 c (1/2 c) pickling or kosher salt
Ice cubes – lots
2 c (4 c) 5% cider vinegar
1 Tbsp (2 Tbsp) mustard seeds, crushed a little. Or use half as much ground.
1/2 tsp (1 tsp) black peppercorns, crushed a little
1-1/2 tsp (1 Tbsp) celery seeds, crushed a little
1-1/2 tsp (1 Tbsp) ground ginger
1/2 tsp (1 tsp) ground turmeric
2 c (4 c) white sugar
2 c (4 c) sliced onions
1/2 tsp (1 tsp) red pepper flakes (optional)

Equipment for boiling water bath canning.
About 4 (8) pint canning jars with lids and rings
Canning kettle or large deep pan and rack to keep jars off bottom
Large non-metal bowl or crock. Otherwise, use a large (2 gal) baggie, with something underneath it in case of leakage
Wide mouth funnel is useful, along with a ladle and jar lifter
8 quart non-reactive (not aluminum or cast iron) pot or pan

Wash cukes, rubbing off any spines, and slice 1/8” thick, discarding the first slice from each end. (Mandoline is a lifesaver, but I managed with just a knife for decades.) Handle carefully to keep from breaking. Layer or mix with salt in glass bowl or crock. Cover with ice cubes (thick layer) and refrigerate at least 3 hours. Add more ice if needed.

Meanwhile, mix the spices with 1 c of the vinegar and let stand at least 1 hour. Drain through a coffee filter and discard the solids. Add more vinegar to this spiced vinegar to make the full amount. Set aside.

Bring water in canning kettle to a boil and sterilize 4 (8) clean canning jars and lids by boiling them for 10 minutes. Dip the ladle and funnel in, too. Be sure the kettle is deep enough that the jars will be covered with 2” of boiling water during processing.

After 3 hours, drain the cukes and rinse well to remove some saltiness. Drain well, removing all ice cubes. Have the canning kettle at the boil.

Mix the spiced vinegar with the sugar and optional pepper flakes in a large non-reactive kettle. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes. (This will seem like too little syrup. Keep going.) Add the vegetables. (They give off some liquid.) Bring back to a rolling boil.

Divide the solids immediately between the drained canning jars (not letting them cool). Divide the hot syrup, filling jars to within ¼” of jar top. Wipe the rims with a hot damp paper towel and place the lids on, screwing them down tightly with the rings.

Place the hot jars in the boiling water and process by boiling for 15 minutes (after the water has come back to the boil). Remove them from the water (jar lifter) and place on a rack or towel to cool. Tighten the lids as soon as they are out of the water, then leave them completely alone to cool. Don’t tamper with the lids until they are cool, as this may break the seal.

Once cool, remove the jar rings and wash off any sticky leakage. Label and store in a cool dark place. Once opened (or if any didn’t seal), store in refrigerator.

Notes: 4 pounds of sliced cukes, should give approximately 4 quarts sliced. This is approximately 32 cukes if they are 4” long. It’s possible (and pretty) to substitute sliced radish for part of the cucumber, if you don’t have enough cukes, have radishes you want to use up, or just because you want to. Since pickles are traditionally a way to store what the garden provides, they’re often a mix of whatever’s available.

In fact, the best and most traditional way to use this recipe is just figure out what and how much stuff you have to pickle. Make the right amount of syrup for the volume you have; a little leftover syrup is better than not enough. You can use it sparingly to season potato salad or something else. If you need to make more, process what veg you can now, while it's hot, and put the rest of it in the fridge till more syrup is done. You don’t have to make a full batch as long as you keep to the proportions. Make the syrup to your taste, spicy or not, as long as it's equal parts 5% vinegar and sugar. I'm not sure you can call them B&Bs with a different vinegar, but as long as it's 5%, it'll work for preservation purposes. Leave the seeds whole if you want to; the spices can be messed with. If you like your pickles a bit thicker, slice them ¼” thick. I’ve considered using sliced small peeled beets instead of cukes..

This is a very old recipe and the older style had more sliced onion; almost 25% of the veg. The mustard and celery seeds were left whole and not strained out of the vinegar; the pepper in that case was ground white pepper. That style is more of a relish or small side to a meal than a sandwich addition, and is quite good.

For pickle relish, dice the solids small, after their salt/ice/rinse/drain treatment. (In that case, I'd slice them lengthwise, not crosswise, to make the dicing easier.) Processing time is the same, still 15 minutes.

The weirdest and best pickle relish I ever made was when I used extremely overripe cukes at the end of the season – huge, yellow, tough skin, big seed cavity. Rather than let them rot, I peeled them, cut them in half, scooped out the seed cavity and pickled what was left. The rest of the recipe was as written. It tasted just like any other sweet pickle relish. However, the reason relish is green is the green skins – without these, the turmeric turns the relish a really lovely, if startling, gold color.

A separate really old recipe is Curry Pickles. Various recipes exist, but I’d just use this recipe with half the amount of mustard and an equal amount really good curry powder. Haven’t tried it, though.