Fermentation Fascination: Rave-worthy Quick Refrigerator Pickles

I'm not a woo-woo sort of person. Pragmatism runs deep in my veins, but recently it's been feeling like the universe is pointing me in the direction of fermentation. Not in a Portlandia "I can pickle that" way, though the show definitely picked up on a trend here with almost every chef in town featuring her own house-made pickles on every plate.

Great-grandma's recipe.

Granted, for several years I've been saying "This is the year I'm going to learn to make pickles!"—or kimchi or sauerkraut or whatever. And the year comes and goes without much progress being made, though I've participated in a few pickling sessions with friends. One of those sessions involved making pickled onions with my neighbors Bill and Jen, who have a huge garden on their city lot and preserve a great deal of what they grow every year.

When I dropped by their place to pick up some cucumbers the other day, Jen brought out one of two thick, three-ring binders full of favorite family recipes that her grandmother had carefully typed out—color me envious! It included one from her great-grandmother for fresh cucumber pickles that are ready in 24 hours. Need I mention that anything quick and easy has my name written all over it?

Rinse those cukes!

And indeed, when I got home, I sliced up those cucumbers, salted them down per great-grandma's instructions, made the brine, and a couple of hours later had two quart jars of pickles sitting in the fridge. I admit I sampled them before the 24 hours had gone by and they were delightful. So good, in fact, that they ended up coming with us that very evening as part of an antipasto platter we were taking to celebrate our friends' new home.

As for future fermentation festivities? Turns out the universe wasn't done with me just yet. Dave gave me a copy of Sandor Katz's The Art of Fermentation as an anniversary present, so expect to read about those adventures in future installments!

Great-Grandma's Fresh Cucumber Pickles

5-6 cucumbers, about 8" long
1 medium onion
3-4 Tbsp. salt
2 c. cider vinegar
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. water
Optional: mustard seeds, peppercorns, fresh dill, dried chiles, whole garlic cloves

Slice cucumbers into 1/8" coins. Slice onion into quarters lengthwise, then into 1/4" slices crosswise. Combine in large bowl. Add salt and mix. Place in refrigerator for 90 minutes.

While cucumber mixture is soaking, in a medium-sized pan heat vinegar and water to a bare simmer. Add sugar. Stir until it dissolves, then add any desired spices (mustard seeds, pappercorns, dried chiles and garlic cloves). Allow to cool slightly.

When cucumbers are ready, rinse in several changes of running water, draining thoroughly between rinses. (Great-grandma says to rinse until they no longer taste of salt, but mine never did get to that stage.) Drain thoroughly. Pack cucumbers and onions into quart jars, layering them with spices from the brine and the fresh dill. Pour brine over packed cucumbers, using a chopstick inserted down the side to press out air bubbles as much as possible. Cover with lid and put in refrigerator. The pickles will be ready in 24 hours. Makes approximately 2 quarts.

Need a Vacation? Take Your Mouth to Portugal

I love to travel, but sometimes it's just not possible to jump on a plane and leave the world behind for a week or three. That's when I start planning for a foreign vacation right in my own back yard, with rosé chilling in a tub in the dappled sunlight beneath our oak tree and myriad plates of tapas like this one from contributor Jim Dixon of Real Good Food.

Portuguese Marinated Carrots

These are often served with drinks as a petisco, the Portuguese version of a tapa. Cut three or four carrots into roughly half inch slices (I split them lengthwise, then slice crosswise) and cook them in well-salted boiling water for about 10 minutes. You want them just barely tender, not soft.

While the carrots cook, make the marinade by stirring together a tablespoon of honey or sugar with a couple of tablespoons of Katz Sparkling Wine vinegar [regular white wine vinegar works, too], then adding four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Toast a couple of tablespoons of cumin seeds in a dry skillet for a few minutes until they're aromatic and just starting to brown.

Drain the carrots and add them to the dressing along with the cumin and a couple of cloves of finely chopped garlic. Chop a nice handful of cilantro and add it; add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. If you can, let this sit for an hour or more. It's not traditional, but I like a little red pepper heat, and if you like things hot, add something spicy, like a pinch of cayenne. (In a few weeks I'll have some of Necton's new flor de sal with piri piri chile at my Activspace store, and it's really good sprinkled over the carrots.)

Serve these with good olives and a nice drizzle of extra virgin. If it's sunny, open a cold bottle of vinho verde and pretend you're in the Algarve.

My First Pickle is an Onion

I cultivate friends with skills. Like Hank Shaw, master forager and inspiring hunter and cook, who showed me how to pluck wapato tubers from the marshy muck on a wetland's verge. Or Jack Czarnecki, mushroom guru extraordinaire, who revealed the mysteries of mycological activity occuring deep beneath the ground in Oregon's forests. Then there's Linda Colwell, who, among many other things, shared her passion for infused liqueurs made from seasonal berries and luscious syrups made from flowers. Not only do I learn new skills and work with (and enjoy) the freshest ingredients, I get to know fantastically smart and interesting people, a win-win-win!

Salted, rinsed onions.

One skill I've been jonesing to learn is pickling. (I know, right? It shocks me that I've never learned how.) No one in my family was into it when I was growing up, though I vaguely recall my mother tried pickling cucumbers a few times with apparently unsatisfactory results. So I was thrilled when my neighbor Bill, an amazing gardener and super nice guy, called and said that he and his equally cool wife, Jen, were going to make a batch of pickled onions from the Walla Walla sweet onions he'd harvested from his garden.

Onions going into jars.

Trying to walk, not run down to their house, I arrived with a jar of black currant jam in hand as payola to find that Jen had sliced the onions into half-inch rings and salted them down, then rinsed them thoroughly. They'd also made a brine of vinegar, sugar and some thyme leaves from their garden. While the onions were cooking in the brine, Jen pulled washed jars out of the dishwasher and put canning lids into a saucepan to simmer and sterilize.

Adding the brine.

Then it was just using tongs to pluck out the onions and fill the jars, pouring the still-hot brine over the onions and putting the lids on before they went into a hot water bath for ten minutes. Seriously, the whole process took a little over 90 minutes start to finish—along with the serious amount of time I spent wondering what in heck had prevented me from trying this simple process before. Thanks, guys!

Pickled Onions

For the brine:
3 1/2 c. white vinegar
2 c. sugar
1-2 tsp. thyme leaves plus sprigs for garnishing each jar

For the onions:
16 c. onions, sliced crosswise into 1/2" disks
4 Tbsp. pickling spice
10 1-cup canning jars and ten lids and rings

Wash ten one-cup jars in the dishwasher (or wash by hand in hot water). Allow to dry. Fill canner 2/3 full of water and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer and cover.

Place onions and pickling spice into large mixing bowl and combine. Set aside for 1 hour, occasionally mixing them with your hands and separating them into rings. Rinse thoroughly to wash off any remaining pickling spice and squeeze gently to remove as much moisture as possible. Set in colander to drain.

While the onions are draining, put the vinegar, sugar and thyme leaves into a large pot and bring to a boil. Add the drained onions and when the brine returns to a boil, lower the heat slightly and cook the onions at a low boil for 10 minutes. While the onions are cooking, put the jars on a towel-lined tray. Put canning lids in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, then turn off heat.

Using tongs, put onions in each jar to within 1/2" of the rim (you won't necessarily use all the jars). Pour hot brine over the onions in the jars to within 1/2" of the rim. Top with sprig of thyme, if desired. With a clean towel, wipe the rims dry and place the canning lids on top, then screw on the canning rings finger-tight. Using canning lifter, submerge jars in the canner and bring water to a boil. When water in the canner returns to a boil, cook for 10 minutes. Using lifter, remove jars from canner and set on a towel on the counter to cool. Listen for the lids to pop, signifying a complete seal. They can be stored in a cool, dark place for from several months or up to a year.

That Weed In Your Yard? It's the New Superfood.

For years I'd been battling the red-stemmed, succulent-like weed with the fat, oval leaves, wondering what in the heck kind of invader it was. It wasn't particularly hard to pull out, but it was pretty darn persistent, coming back every year like those door-to-door fundraising dudes with their clipboards. I'd seen it in other people's yards, too, even growing out of the most inhospitable cracks in the sidewalk.

Purslane in a grain salad.

Then, out at Ayers Creek Farm one day, I saw its familiar shape and made some kind of smart remark to Anthony Boutard about needing to do a better job weeding his rows. First, never mention weeds to an organic farmer…the plant you're pointing at might be a valuable nitrogen-fixing cover crop for soil improvement or be providing shade for a sprout that's just peeking out of the soil. He informed me that the "weed" I was disparaging was purslane, one of the bonus crops he sells at the farmers' market, along with other field greens like chickweed, lamb's quarters and more.

Purslane in buttermilk soup.

In Theo's, a Greek restaurant in the town of Penticton in British Columbia's Okanagan wine region, I saw purslane offered as a salad on the menu and pointed it out to Dave. The owner overheard us, and came over to tell the remarkable story of how his mother, Mary Theodosakis, was walking through a farmer's field and saw it growing under a plant in one of his rows. Having grown up foraging the plant called glistritha in her native Crete, she asked the surprised farmer if she could take some to serve at her restaurant. Long story short, the farmer started growing it just for her and then, when her customers began asking where they could buy some, he began growing it as a cash crop. (Full story here.)

Crunchy when fresh, with a mild, lemony flavor, it's most often used in salads, either as the main ingredient or combined with other greens and grains—try this terrific main dish recipe for tuna, grain and purslane salad. My friend Linda Colwell follows Deborah Madison's lead and includes it in a buttermilk and frikeh soup. Anthony likes to do a quick and easy pickled purslane (recipe below) that keeps in the fridge and can be featured on an antipasto platter or as an accompaniment to grilled meats.

Incredibly high in omega-3 fatty acids—more than any other vegetable—it's also a great source of beta-Carotene, with five times the vitamin E of spinach, according to an article by my friend Leslie Kelly. No wonder it's starting to get some buzz as the new Superfood.

Pickled Purslane
From Anthony Boutard at Ayers Creek Farm

Our staff keeps a nice kitchen garden outside of their front doors. For them, the plants they call verdolagas are an essential green. They are delicious boiled, sautéed, pickled or as a salad. The Lebanese serve them with yoghurt. The French salt purslane overnight before adding it to a salad. Boiled, it can be dressed with a bit of olive oil and ground pepper. Or mix the wilted leaves into a potato salad.

For us, purslane is an essential pickle. Many books suggest pickling just the stem. We prefer to pickle the whole shoot—leaves and stem together. This recipe works for two or three bags of purslane:

We heat and add a tablespoon of salt to 1-1/2 cups of water, then mix in an equal amount of white wine vinegar.  Add a few cloves of garlic, quartered, a tablespoon of peppercorns and a dried pepper.  Drop the purslane into the heated vinegar mixture and let it wilt for a bit.  Pack the purslane and vinegar mix in a mason jar. If you need to, top off with vinegar and water in equal proportions. Store in the refrigerator. We start using them about an hour later, but they will keep for several months.  Some recipes call for full strength vinegar, but we much prefer it diluted.

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled…Walnuts?

Yes, you read that right. And here I thought I was getting all crazy creative by finally making nocino, a walnut liqueur made from green walnuts, something I'd been meaning to do for several years.

The raw material.

But then, wouldn't you know it, my friend (and master forager) Hank Shaw has to up the ante by posting about the pickled walnuts he's making from green walnuts. Seriously? Pickled walnuts? Ack!

Here's what he wrote:

"There may be a few foods that are more English than pickled walnuts, but with the possible exception of fish and chips, I can’t think of one. Chances are, however, you’ve never heard of them. I hadn’t, until several years ago when I ordered the meat-and-cheese plate at a local Irish place called deVere’s. On this place was a black disk. I asked the waitress what on earth it was, and she smiled; she’d had this question before: 'It’s a pickled walnut. It’s good with the cheddar.'

"I followed her advice and stabbed the disk with my fork, adding a bit of cheddar cheese and a bit of cold roast beef to round things out. Wow. It was a bit like eating solid steak sauce, with a little floral aroma and a zephyr of bitterness that just barely let you notice it. I ate another disk all by itself: Fairly soft, puckery and strangely floral. And yes, there was definitely a Worcestershire-Heinz 57-A1-thing going on here. How had I never had these before?"

Starting the brining.

So being someone who can't resist a throwdown like that, particularly since he also mentioned that they're good in beef and lamb stews, in tomato salads—helloooo tomato season—as well as with scallops and shrimp, I decided to give it a whirl and try the recipe he provided in his post. My neighbor's tree was heavy with some perfect green, nutty orbs, so after inquiring politely if I could pick a few, I've started a batch.

Brining took a week, and I've just packed the salty results into quart jars (top photo) to see what happens next. Check back in a month or so to get the full report!

Get Your Pickle On!

Fermentation: 1. The chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeasts, or other microorganisms, typically involving effervescence and the giving off of heat. 2. The process of fermentation involved in the making of beer, wine and liquor, in which sugars are converted to ethyl alcohol.


 3. (archaic
) Agitation; excitement.

The inimitable David Barber of Picklopolis.

There is perhaps no place on the planet that is more pickle-crazy than Portland right now. And I don't mean in a self-consciously Portlandia-esque sort of way. I mean now now. It's the height of harvest season, and if you don't pickle it, freeze it or preserve it in the next few weeks, it's gonna be gone, baby, gone.

Samples galore!

Cherries, peaches, tomatoes, cabbage and all manner of cucurbits are headed for a brine of one kind or another, which, at least in this neck of the woods, calls for a festival where proud picklers of all persuasions can gather and show off their perspicacity and skills at preservation. The Portland Fermentation Festival is also a place where those of us still a bit too shy to try this preservation technique can get tips and tricks from experienced pros and home fermenters, and get a taste of their favorite fixin's.

And we're not just talking dills here…there will be examples of sauerkraut, miso, kefir, kimchi, hard cider, mead and much more, all for just $10. Kick in another ten and you can attend the tasting as well as a lecture by master fermentarian Sandor Ellix Katz, author of Wild Fermentation, The Art of Fermentation and The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved.

You might just go home with more than a pickle in your pocket.

Details: Fourth Annual Portland Fermentation Festival. Wed., Oct. 23, 6:30-9 pm; $10 for tasting; $20 includes tasting and a 6 pm lecture by Sandor Katz. Tickets available online starting Oct. 10 as well as at the event. At Ecotrust's Billy Frank Jr. Conference Center in the Pearl, 721 NW 9th Ave. Info at 503-724-2980.

Photo at top of pickles by master pickler Kevin Gibson of Evoe.

In Season NW: This Diva is No Diva

If you want to have an eye-opening experience at the farmers' market, go with a friend, especially one who's a terrific cook. In this case, my friend Michel called one Saturday morning and said she was heading to the Portland Farmers' Market at PSU to pick up a few things for the week ahead…would I like to go with?

Having just been thinking I wanted to get some Viridian Farms padron peppers from Manuel and Leslie before the season passed me by, I jumped at the chance. Once there, we prowled the market, losing each other once or twice in the crowds thronging the aisles as we stopped to fondle a particularly extraordinary specimen of peppers or eggplant.

I caught up with her under the Groundwork Organics canopy, picking through a pile of smooth-skinned green cucumbers labeled "Diva Cucumbers." New to me, Michel said she loved using them for a quick pickle, marinating them in cider vinegar for an hour or so. When I got home, I looked them up and it turns out they're a seedless variety known for their tender, crisp, sweetness.

Cool. And something I'd never have learned if I'd been by myself.

Grandma Harriet's Marinated Diva Cucumbers

Michel says:

"In the summer, my grandma Harriet put sliced marinated cukes on the dinner table most days.

"The marinade is just Bragg's organic apple cider vinegar, some cold water, sea salt and sugar with sliced red onion and ice cubes. Just peel the cukes, slice thick and add them to the marinade. Pop 'em in the fridge for an hour or so and serve.

"I also use them in Greek Salad, gazpacho and cuke-mint raita. They are so super crunchy!"

Check out Michel's other super recipes for lamb, pork, crab cakes and hash. Yum!

Food Farmer Earth: Packing Pickles

A behind-the-scenes look at an important part of a vital regional food system. My interview for Food Farmer Earth with Paul Fuller of Sweet Creek Foods.

Paul Fuller and his wife Judy have been building their food processing business—they refer to it as a “glassery” rather than a cannery—for 12 years. They started Sweet Creek Foods by processing pickles, then moved on to jams, tomatoes, salsa and tuna. But what they were really building, according to Paul, was an essential piece of a regional food system.

Fuller noticed that a huge amount of perfectly good, fresh produce from local farms was being tossed out because it had a small blemish or was not the right size. Knowing that wasted produce meant lost income for farmers, he sensed an opportunity to help the farmers as well as build a viable business for his family. With that goal in mind, he and Judy started producing fresh pack pickles, something they’d enjoyed doing for themselves for years.

It took a few batches to perfect their technique so that the pickles had the right amount of crispness, but they now produce 100% certified organic bread and butter pickles, garlic dills and chili dills. Using cider vinegar rather than the standard distilled vinegar, they fresh pack their pickles by brining them in cool salt water for 24 to 48 hours. The brined cucumbers are hand-packed in jars, pickling spices are added and then a hot vinegar brine is poured over them. This pickles them in the jar rather than using a fermentation process to do the pickling, which Fuller feels gives them a fresher flavor.

Read the rest of the story here. Watch part two of the interview, Co-Packing Helps Farms Succeed. Get regular updates on this series about our local food scene by subscribing. This week's recipe: easy bread and butter pickles!

In a Pickle About Dinner?

I am in awe of contributor Jim Dixon of RealGoodFood for so many reasons…he works hard, he has a fabulous garden, he's a terrific writer and he makes good food from whatever fresh ingredients are at hand. Oh, yeah, and he's a genuinely nice guy. Here's a cold grain salad of his that I'm going to be making this summer to go with grilled meats or to have all by itself.

The weeks I do the farmers' market are long. I’m at the day job all week, and then my days off are consumed by getting ready and actually being at the market. But I love the seeing my regular customers and meeting new ones, the folks who haven’t discovered how good real extra virgin olive oil can be. So despite feeling a bit ragged, I really don’t mind.

However, I’m writing this Sunday evening, and I have another long day tomorrow. All of which is rationalizing why what follows may not really qualify as a recipe. But it does taste good.

Sort of Pickled Farro Salad

I had some assorted vegetables from Groundwork Organics in the refrigerator and I needed to come up with something for dinner. I cut up a few radishes, red and daikon, a carrot, cucumber and a bit of green cabbage (smallish, bite-sized pieces). It all went in a bowl, and I poured in some Katz late harvest Zinfandel vinegar (the Zinfandel, Sauvignon Blanc, and Viognier Honey all have what Italians call agrodolce, a sweet and sour flavor). A healthy pinch of flor de sal, a quick stir, and I set the bowl aside for a couple of hours for a sort of quick pickle.

Just before dinner, I tossed the vinegared vegetables with a bit of leftover cooked farro and a substantial drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Quite tasty.

See the RealGoodFood website for his upcoming PSU market dates.

R-Evoe-lutionary

Whether we get it from TV or restaurant chefs or glossy magazines, one of the Big Lies of our current food-obsessed age is that you can't prepare great food or, heaven help us, entertain if you have anything less than a gourmet kitchen costing tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars. That kitchen, of course, must be filled with gleaming stainless steel appliances, preferably restaurant-grade. (Think Viking 6-burner stove and Sub-Zero refrigerator.)

The pickle bar.

But all you have to do to turn off the smoke machine and clear the air is to drop into Evoe some early afternoon and take a seat at Kevin Gibson's prep table-cum-chef's bar. With little more than a sharp knife, a mandoline and the same exact non-stick plug-in griddle my mom made pancakes on for most of my childhood, he turns out what I consider some of the best food in the city. I mean, the guy had to beg to get a stove, for gosh sakes, and got a household-grade electric one for his trouble! (Forget gas or a fancy, much less any, hood.)

More padrons, please!

The other day when my son and I dropped in for lunch—I was using up the last of my Christmas coupon for three lunches, his treat—we waited for a seat and pounced when two opened up. (Could it have been my drooling on their shoulders that caused them to leave in such a hurry?) We ordered our usual deviled eggs, Kevin's breathtakingly mustard-infused version dipped in bread crumbs and fried on his griddle till warm and vaporous.

And since I hadn't yet had my fill of padron peppers this year, an order of those was de rigeur, and a huge pile of the blistered gems soon appeared before us. The best thing to do at Evoe is to order your next plate when one arrives, so on Kevin's advice we ordered the whole sea bream stuffed with minced fennel fronds and with an array of sautéed whole cherry tomatoes alongside.

Octopus salad.

As we munched our peppers, Kevin disappeared into the kitchen and emerged with a fish, which he slashed crosswise and showered with salt crystals while it came up to room temperature. Turning on a burner (electric, remember?) he put a pan on the stove to get it searingly hot and moved to the chopping block, mincing up the fennel stuffing. When it was safely stowed inside the fish, he put the fish into the pan for it to brown for a few minutes.

At some point between flipping the fish to sear the other side and putting it into the oven to finish cooking, he added a bunch of cherry tomatoes to the pan. And that's the other thing I love about this place: it's like getting a master-level cooking class for the price of lunch, my idea of the perfect noon-time activity.

The sea bream emerged moist on the inside with salty, crispy skin (top photo), and we took Kevin's advice and pried out the cheek and head meat, leaving little but bones and a couple of fins on the plate. To finish off in style we went for the octopus salad, a concoction of more cherry tomatoes and chilled octo lightly dressed with a simple vinaigrette.

So while Kevin's got more raw talent in his little fingernail than I'll ever achieve, it's instructive to watch someone make food magic with the most basic of kitchen appliances. Instructive and delicious.

Details: Evoe, 3731 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd. Phone 503-232-1010.