Taste of Community

Chicago Botanic Garden,
Main Campus

Jennifer Schwarz, Pickles

Chicago Botanic Garden

pickles

Overview

Taste of Community Programs

1. Chicago Botanic Garden,
Main Campus​

Community Stories and Recipes

2. Faith in Place​

3. Garfield Park Conservatory

4. Little Village Environmental Justice Organization​

5. National Museum of Mexican Art

6. Northern Suburban Special Recreation Association​

7. PCC Austin Family Health Center​

8. Chicago Botanic Garden,
Farm on Ogden Campus

 

My contribution to this evening’s dinner is pickles.

My contribution to this evening’s dinner is pickles. It’s a relatively new thing for me. I’ve only been making pickles for about five or six years, so it’s not connected to my family history (except I remember my dad drinking store-bought pickle juice as a child), but it is linked to the ways that food can allow people to share cultures and to the ways food can create community.​

I grew up in a rural, wooded area of New York, and I’ve always loved the outdoors and gardening, but I didn’t start growing food plants until I moved from Rogers Park to the north suburbs. I miss the lake and the city of course, but the tradeoff was space, and a place to grow, literally and figuratively. I started out with what was really a nightshade garden—tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant—along with herbs.​

As it turned out, my neighbors are from Silesia in Poland, and as we got to know each other (they are now my second family), I was introduced to Polish brine pickles, ogórki kiszone, a staple in their household. They were an entirely new experience, nothing like the vinegar pickles I was used to, salty but mellow and flavorful. I was inspired, and added space to my garden so I could try my hand at growing cucumbers for pickles. I was skeptical at first. Could you really just put a bunch of cucumbers in salt water and have them emerge as pickles? They wouldn’t rot? Squish? Nope. Delicious.

What you have here today is an evolution. These pickles are vinegar pickles, my own recipes for spicy bread and butter pickles, and spicy dill spears. There should be a jar for everyone to take home. As I share these with you, there are two types of cucumbers in my garden, pickling cucumbers that will become brine and vinegar pickles, and new this year, Korean cucumbers, long and skinny with only a few seeds.

Spicy Bread and Butter Pickels

Pints of pickles: Makes 8–10 

Ingredients

Cucumbers

5 lbs pickling cucumbers

2 lbs yellow onions

1/2 C kosher or pickling salt

Ice

10–12 pint canning jars w/lids. The recipe makes 8–10 pints but I always like to have a few extra jars just in case.

10 dried Korean hot peppers (optional)
Pickle crisp granules (I use the Ball variety)

Pickling Liquid

4 C cider vinegar

3 C white vinegar

1 C water

1/4 C. mustard seeds

2 t celery seed

1 T red pepper flakes (or to taste)

1 stick cinnamon broken into 2–3 pieces

24 allspice berries, whole

24 cloves, whole

1.5 t. turmeric

1/2–2 C sugar (to taste, I use 1/2–3/4 depending on my mood)

You can use the same liquid and process for other vegetables as well. pickled jalapenos are delicious!

You may have extra pickling liquid–make refrigerator pickles with any veg you have around. Carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, red onion, or jalapenos all work well. Simply pack a jar with your veg of choice, fill with the extra pickling liquid, and in 24–48 hours (depending on the porosity of the vegetable) you’ll have great refrigerator pickles. Carrots and cauliflower will take longer than mushrooms for example, but they last longer too.

Directions

1. Prepare the Cucumbers

  • Slice cucumbers 1/4 inch thick
  • Cut onions in quarters and slice thin
  • Toss cucumbers with onions and salt
  • Cover with ice
  • Refrigerate for 1–3 hours

2. Make the Pickling Liquid

  • Combine all ingredients in a stock pan, simmer covered on low for an hour, stirring occasionally.
  • Bring back to a low simmer when ready to begin canning.

3. Sterilize the Jars

  • Bake clean jars at 350 for 15 minutes, turn off the oven and leave the jars in to keep warm (alternately you can boil them for 10 minutes at a full boil, I just think it’s easier to bake).
  • Boil the lids for 10 minutes—leave in hot water to keep warm.

4. Prepare the Hot Water Bath

  • Use a very large stock pot, fill with water about 1/3–1/2 of the way. Enough that when you’ve put your pickles in there’s at least 1" of water above the tops of the jars.
  • Bring to a simmer–this can take a while if you’re using a very large pot, so I like to start it heating early.

The key is to keep everything but the cucumbers hot while you’re getting ready.

This will ensure a crispy pickle that is shelf stable.

5. Rinse the cucumbers

  • Rinse the cucumbers and onions well to remove excess salt. Pull off ice and drain excess water using a strainer, let continue to drain while you get ready with the rest.

6. Fill the jars

  • I do this 4 jars at a time so everything stays hot. Use pot holders and be careful not to burn yourself!
  • Take 4 jars from the oven.
  • Add 1/8 t. pickle crisper and one dried Korean hot pepper if using.
  • Pack with the cucumbers and onions—careful not to burn yourself, use oven mitts.
  • Fill with hot pickling liquid and seal jars.
  • Put in hot water bath.
  • Repeat until you’ve canned all the cucumbers and they’re in the hot water bath.

7. Hot water bath

  • Continue to heat the water on high heat until it comes to a boil.
  • When it comes to a boil, remove the jars and let cool–you should hear each jar seal with a pop.

Important: if a jar does not pop it is not sealed and not shelf stable. 

Put any jars that do not pop in the fridge, they will be good for a month in the fridge, and delicious. You can tell if it is not sealed if when you press the middle of the lid, it moves and there is give.

  • When the jars pop, you’re good to go. They will keep for years.
  • Label your jars with the date and contents.