Processing the Fall

[beetiger]

heron61 posted a lovely looking recipe for brined apples last night, and I wanted to try it.

It calls for a gallon jar, but I can't fit that in my fridge for a month and it's not cool enough here to keep it fermenting in the garage, so I pulled out a heavy rubbersealed quart jar that I have, to make a small batch. I've got about 3/4 quart of small Seckel pears from our CSA, which are nice but for some reason don't soften up and hurt my teeth, so I figured I'd pickle them instead of some apples.

I made a third-recipe of the brine, using some nice greek honey I've got from my inlaws and some plain old regular salt instead of pickling salt. No sour cherry leaves, so some nice rolled gunpowder green Chinese tea I've got laying around. No fresh tarragon at hand -- some crushed dried bay will do. They seem to be jammed in the jar tight enough to not float, so I skipped weighting them.

bard_bloom picked up our son and looked at him seriously. "Watch well my son! See how your mother uses a recipe while changing every last thing in it."

I think they're going to be great. If not, well, I can't really blame heron61. He tried to tell me what to do.

Comments

[alcinoe.livejournal.com]

ROFL.. I do the same thing. I don't think that I have ever completely followed a recipe. Okay, for duck once and once for aging beef. Otherwise, I am pretty flexible about recipes. Yours sounds like it should be pretty darned good. I can't wait to hear how it came out.

Pickling salt

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

I remember Alton Brown saying there was a reason not to use plain table salt for pickling but I can't remember what he said.

The only thing i found on the interenet was this:
"Pickling salt: This is similar to table salt, but lacks the iodine and anti-caking additives that turn pickles dark and the pickling liquid cloudy. Pickles made with table salt would still be good to eat, but they wouldn't look as appetizing."

I also change things in my recipies. But a funny thing with me is that I have to keep using the original recipe to get the same results. If I write down my changes and try to follow that recipe it doesn't come out the same :-)

Re: Pickling salt

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

Feh. Alton Brown. :P Don't get me started on my Alton Brown rant.

But in any case, yes, iodine in the pickle is going to make it a bit discolored and maybe slightly bitter. I can deal with that. I'm a little worried that the iodine with interfere with the fermentation, but we will see.

Re: Alton Brown

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

Feh. Alton Brown. :P Don't get me started on my Alton Brown rant.

Oh rant away! I'm curious now :-)

Alton Brown

[lediva.livejournal.com]

Follow my easy-to-follow steps and you'll have a delicious homemade gourmet pizza at home in the time it would take to order about 30 pies from your random local delivery service!

Re: Alton Brown

[sheherazahde.livejournal.com]

While that is true, to be fair his show isn't about fast or even easy cooking. I don't always agree with him but I love his explainations on the theory and science of cooking.

I learned how to brine a turkey from him (not fast or easy, although easier than any other brining instructions I've seen)

But I also learned how to make Turbo Hummus from him. I hardly ever used to make Hummus, now it is so fast and easy it is one of my fall-back recipies.

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

(Though, in fact, she used honey, just like the original recipe. And water, too, if that counts.)

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

Oh! Let us know if it is viable with tea and a smaller size? The pippins are in season right now...