Fish
Pickled Pike
If you're not from the Northwoods, you may have never heard of pickled pike. Well, this is to the boreal forest what ceviche is to the tropics: A great way to snack on fish with saltines...
Fish
Boquerones, Fresh Cured Anchovies
Fresh cured anchovies sounds like an oxymoron, but it isn't. This is more like a ceviche than the red, salty anchovies you get in a can. Called boquerones in Spain and gavros in Greece, these are fantastic on crackers or by themselves.
Recipe
Pickled Walnuts
Pickled walnuts? Yep, you read right. Pickled unripe, green walnuts is a British thing that originated because in parts of Britain the climate's too harsh for walnuts to fully ripen. They take a while to make, but once you do, they are a great sweet-sour condiment to cheeses as well as cured and roasted meats.
Preservation Recipes
Pickled Fiddleheads
Catching the ephemeral fiddlehead is a tricky business, and I find that pickling them is a great way of preserving this zephyr of spring. This is an old-style brine pickle, lacto-fermented with no vinegar.
Preservation Recipes
Smoked, Roasted and Preserved Jalapenos
This is one of the most awesome things I've ever made: Jalapenos, fire-roasted, then smoked, then preserved with a little vinegar and oil. Put that on a taco and you will absolutely not be sorry!
Preservation Recipes
Sicilian Dried Zucchini
This is my favorite way to eat zucchini: It's an old Sicilian method where you dry the zukes and then saute them with oil, chile and mint. I grow zucchini almost solely for this recipe.
Berries and Fruits
Chinese Plum Sauce with Wild Plums
A Chinese style plum sauce made with wild plums. This stuff kicks the crap out of store-bought, and is even better on Peking Duck than the more common hoisin sauce. But hell, this stuff is so good it'd be awesome on an old tire.
Preservation Recipes
Pickled Mustard Greens
Ever since I began studying Chinese food some years ago, I noticed how much fermented and pickled foods factor into…
Preservation Recipes
Wild Green Onion Kimchi
It's wild onion season pretty much everywhere, and there happens to be a cool kind of Korean kimchi that uses green onions. So I made a big batch last month and let it ferment. Lo and behold, it's awesome - especially as an accompaniment to fish.
Recipe
Polish Fermented Mushrooms
I'd always been leery of the Slavic style of salt-pickled mushrooms. But I finally took the plunge and fermented my mushrooms Polish style, and damn but they're good -- especially with some rye bread and lots of vodka...
Preservation Recipes
Pickled Sunchokes
We're heading into Tuber Time, and one of my favorites are jerusalem artichokes, which are native to North America. Although these tubers will keep for months in the fridge, the best way to preserve them long-term is to pickle them. I've been making this recipe for years, and I am pretty proud of it.
Foraging
Curing Olives with Lye
Many of the olives I cure each year are done in a brine. But year after year I've been curing more with lye. I know it sounds scary, but it's not - if you follow these simple instructions. The result is a buttery, firm olive that I actually prefer over the brine cured ones.
