These Are, Hands-Down, My Favorite Pickles
When made without vinegar, they've got a short shelf life, but they are The Best
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We take cucumbers for granted; they’re year-round staples with little character that you chop up and put into salads, make Sichuan-style, and throw into smoothies. Some people still eat cucumber sandwiches; I know because I’m among them.
That’s all fine. But you’re not going to delight in a store-bought hothouse cucumber in January.
This is the time for daily cucumber eating, and for real enjoyment, whether they’re sprinkled with salt, grated into sour cream or yogurt, or made into soup.
Still: When cucumbers are “in,” desperate measures are required; that’s what seasonal eating is about. Even if you’re not a gardener or a CSA member, cukes are everywhere.
Recently, for the first time in years, I thought about making what I consider to be “real” pickles—the kind you put up in jars and eat in January and think of summer, the kind that in my mind a real pantry is full of—and it took me a full day to reject that notion. Not only is canning a hassle of the first order, but I don’t even like those kinds of pickles. I don’t like pickling spice especially, but really what I can’t stand is food soaked in vinegar. (I am not sure anyone really does, and that’s why “real” pickles have sugar, too.) Preserving is a thing, obviously, it serves a purpose, but if it’s not necessary and you don’t like the taste, what’s the point?
What I like are vinegar-free, salty-garlicky half-sours, which is not surprising since that’s what I grew up with. Other people like them too: Some friends were over the other night, and they were like, “These are amazing. How do you do this?”
Put aside for a moment that people like anything you cook for them — what’s true is that it’s not easy to get pickles like these because they’re best when homemade and they don’t keep forever, so industrial food processing can’t deal with them. They’re pickle-barrel pickles and, as it happens, they’re among the easiest things in the world to make.
When asked “How do you do this?” I say: “Dissolve a third of a cup of salt in a cup of hot water. Put that in a bowl with ice cubes to cool it down. Add a few cloves of garlic, crushed, and a couple of pounds of cukes, cut up. (Or not, or just halved, if small.) Cover with water and a plate if necessary to submerge the cukes. Let sit at room temperature until ready — sometimes as little as a couple of hours, sometimes overnight. Refrigerate and eat. Add more cukes to the brine until it tastes too weak, and then add more salt or start again.”
Or I say “Look in How to Cook Everything.” (Or, to you, I say, “See below.”)
Note that you can replenish these — add cucumbers, add salt, add garlic, from time to time, to your crock, or your container — or you can make a fresh batch every few days. But what you can’t do is not eat them, because they’re only good for a week or a little longer. Which is okay: You can eat, personally, two or three whole cucumbers a day if you make them this way, and many people will.