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Carrot Pickles
Carrot Pickles are good - crunchy and carroty like a good carrot should be, but much crisper than a normal raw carrot would be.
Last time I did pickled carrots I didn’t salt the veggies and instead used hot vinegar and then stored in the fridge right away. Very nice they were too - the details are lost in the mists of time, but they were good. This time, though, I thought I’d keep it raw, and see how salting worked. Answer - much, much crunchier, something I value in a pickle.
I started out with some thin carrots - about 1-1.5cm in diameter. The very thinnest I left whole, the others I cut in half lengthways. I put them in a glass dish, just the right size for them to form a single layer, without much gap. I salted fairly generously - this is where I really need to start measuring (as you will see), but I’m guessing about a tablespoon and a bit. And it was a mixture of table salt and coarse sea salt (McGee says other elements in sea salt help make pickles crisper).
I covered and left ‘em overnight, and was amazed - amazed! - when I next checked on them, they were almost submerged in the water that had been exuded. Phenomenal. The carrots were all floppy too - I really couldn’t imagine them crisping up.
Then the carrots were jarred, and generously covered with a lukewarm spiced cider vinegar. I boiled the vinegar with the spices this time, but I’m not sure what gives the best result when leaving the pickles for a month to mature (I have just dumped in the spice with the vinegar at jarring). Top on tightly, and leave for a month.
And they were opened to eat with cheese and soup on Monday night. Fantastic! Bright, sweet, cuminy and very crunchy. Very good.
But not quite perfect - firstly, too much cumin. It’s a very nice spice (particularly with carrots), but can dominate the conversation a little. As it does here. The caraway is nowhere, and even the coriander isn’t doing that much. And, unfortunately, they’re also a little too salty - I don’t know whether this is because I didn’t rinse the carrots sufficiently, or that the carrots absorbed too much salt, in which case I just need to start out using less. And measuring what I use. I might remove (and save) some of the vinegar and top up with plain cider vinegar to dilute the cumin and salt.
Recipe for the vinegar:
0.5 tsp caraway
1tsp cumin (I’d use less than this next time!)
1.5 tsp coriander lightly crushed
12 black peppercorn
250ml cider vinegar
Bring all to boil then simmer for 5 minutes. Allow to cool, then use to cover very well rinsed carrots that have been salted overnight (I would go with 12hours) and then placed in a clean jar. This amount of vinegar is probably good for a 400ml jar of well-packed carrots (I used a larger jar, but only half-filled it). Top up with regular cider vinegar if you don’t have enough.
