Photo by Holly A. Heyser
I love, love, love pickles and preserved foods. I do everything from cure my own olives to pickle fish, but the recipes here are standard — more or less — vegetable and fruit pickles. I often find myself with more of a wild edible food or a garden veggie than I can eat fresh, so I immediately think “how can I pickle some of this?” There’s usually a way.
If you can’t find what you are looking for on this page, try my friend Sean’s site, Punk Domestics. He has lots of pickle recipes contributed from the blogosphere.
CONDIMENTS
Wild Onion Kimchi
I make this with Western three-cornered leeks, but you can use ramps or any other green onion or scallion.
How to Make Verjus
Verjus or verjuice is a “vinegar” made by pressing unripe grapes. Its less acidic than actual vinegar, and is what you will want to use when you want a bright flavor with food served with wine.
ROOTS and BULBS
Preserved Garlic
Not pickled garlic but, caramelized, sweet garlic cloves pressure-canned. This is one of the most amazing foods I’ve ever made.
Brine Pickled Carrots
Yep. Old style, no-vinegar pickles, fermented in brine. I pickle carrots in no other way now.
Pickled Jerusalem Artichokes
Also called sunchokes, these crunchy tubers are awesome pickled with turmeric and chiles.
FRUITS
Pickled or Preserved Lemons
Salting citrus such as lemons, limes or oranges has been done in many cultures. Here is an overview of the different methods, with a recipe.
OTHER VEGETABLES
Pickled Artichokes
This is by far the best method for preserving artichoke hearts. Works best with the little artichokes.
Pickled Cauliflower
Classic Italian antipasto style pickled cauliflower. If you grew up in “red sauce” places, you’ll love this one.
Pickled Fennel Agrodolce
Sweet and sour fennel pickles, with a little lemon zest thrown in. Wonderful on an antipasto plate.
Preserving Peppers
An old Italian method for preserving sweet or hot peppers. You roast them, dredge in vinegar, salt and preserve in olive oil.
Sicilian Preserved Zucchini
Similar to the pepper recipe above, this is a great way to preserve zucchini. Salted, dried and preserved in oil.
Pickled Sweet Onions
Onion pickles flavored with ginger and mint. Great on a burger.
MUSHROOMS
Pickled Chanterelle Mushrooms
This is my standard pickle for mushrooms. Slight sweetness, lots of mustard seed and bay leaves. Works with most mushrooms.
Italian Marinated Mushrooms
Absolutely my favorite way to preserve big, meaty mushrooms. I like porcini preserved this way better than ever fresh porcini!
Polish Salted Mushrooms
A Polish and Eastern European method of preserving mushrooms, these are boiled briefly, then salted down and fermented. Spectacular with bread and vodka.
OLIVES
How to Cure Green Olives
The most basic methods, with water and with brine. Water curing takes vigilance, brine curing takes time.
Curing Olives with Lye
My favorite way to cure green olives. It sounds gnarly, but lye-curing dates back 2000 years. It makes a buttery olive.
How to Make Oil-Cured Olives
This is that Greek style wrinkly olive. It is a very easy method of curing black olives, and the flavor is far better than any store-bought olive.
MISCELLANEOUS
Preserved Grape Leaves
I use these grape leaves to make dolmades, stuffed grape leaves. They will last more than a year if you can them.
Tomatillo Salsa
Tomatillo and cilantro salsa. This is a cooked, canned salsa that makes a perfect base for making chile verde.
Madrone Tea Eggs
Madrone is a flavorful tree bark in the West, which creates this pretty stain on the cracked eggs. You can also use ponderosa pine or hickory bark to make these.
[...] Hank Shaw hunts, fishes, gathers and pickles here. [...]
Hank, I just found your blog after (many, many, many clicks after…) googling a pickled cauliflower recipe. I used your recipe and my giardiniera is made and cooling in the fridge, (with the obligatory jar of cucumber slices and spears I was forced to pickle because I made more brine than I needed) but I digress. I was thrilled to find your posts about brining and curing olives. I enjoyed reading your posts and then pinned them onto Pinterest so I can timidly pursue olive preservation this year. I think I’ve pickled almost everything. I can make jam out of whatever grows. Let me in your kitchen and I’ll have dinner ready in an hour. But, olives…they scare me.
We just moved to Ripon (near Modesto) and the property we rented has five prolific olive trees. I can’t stand wasting anything so I’ve been feeling twitchy about preparing to deal with all the olives growing on these five old trees. I know that they’re old. I know that they make great shade. I’ve watched some videos and read some material about identifying the variety of olive. I got nothin.
You mentioned that you go out and pick olives. Ripon is just over an hour south of Sacramento. If you’d like to have a pile of these olives, we’d love to invite you to come pick here! I might even know what type they are by the time I hear from you. I can provide photos of the trees, foliage, and fruit and maybe you’ll know by looking at them. I don’t know when they need to be picked for table fruit, but I suspect that’s coming soon.
I’ll enjoy reading the rest of your posts. I just sent your crayfish post to one of the boys at my son’s school because he is an avid fisherman who just started building his own traps. He’s gonna love your blog. Keep writing; you’re really good. Let me know if you’d like some free olives!
Kimberly
PS. How lucky are YOU that your partner happens to be an astonishing photographer. Her work is stunning.