I think most people will agree when I say pickles are awesome. Salty, delicious, fresh and wonderful, I could eat pickles every day and never tire of them. However being the picky person I am, I find that not all pickles are created equal. The bizarre neon green pickles from the shelf at the grocery are floppy and sad. The pickles from the cooler near the lunch meats are better, but still not quite up to the par of the wonderful fresh flavor my ideal pickle. But my favorite pickles tend to be had only as a complimentary companion of a sandwich or burger at a few choice delis and restaurants.  As such, I’ve been considering making my own for some time. Sadly, as most of my grand plans go, I rarely found the time, or had the leftover energy to actually get it done.

That is until a few months ago. One week there were cucumbers on special at the store, and I’d bought a lot of them with the intention of eating a lot of salad. But as it usually goes, the whole salad plan went by the wayside in favor of things that were probably much less healthy and I ended up with two giant English cucumbers that were teetering on the edge becoming spoiled. Threatened with having the guilt of two ruined cucumbers on my conscience, I found the motivation to overcome my own laziness. I had to do something, and quick!

Now, cucumbers are actually one of my favorite vegetables, but eating two giant cucumbers in the space of a day didn’t really seem like much of an option. So what better than to make them into something delicious? And what is more delicious than a pickle?!

Since the opportunity came about rather spontaneously I didn’t do the amount of research I would usually, so basically my plan constituted typing “pickle recipe” into google and reading around a bit. After the reading, plus a few trial and error attempts, I ended up with the recipe below.

Half-Sour Dill and Garlic Pickles

10 cups water

1/4 cup sea salt

1/4 cup white vinegar

12 fresh pickling cucumbers

1 bunch of dill

6 cloves of garlic

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

2 or 3 bay leaves 

In pot, bring the water, vinegar and salt to a boil to create the brine.

Wash your cucumbers and cut them into halves the long way (so they’re like cucumber boats).

To brine your pickles you’re going to need a container or bowl of some kind large enough to fit all of those cucumbers, herbs and ten cups of briny water. I have a large plastic container that I think was originally intended to hold cereal or cat food that I’ve been using for this purpose. In this container I start by placing 1/3 of my dill and 2 or 3 cloves of garlic in the bottom, followed by half of my pickle halves faced down, then more dill and garlic, the rest of the pickles, and topped off with another garlic/dill layer. Then I sprinkle the peppercorns over it all. (Effectively you could probably drop all that stuff into your container haphazardly and it wouldn’t make a difference, though.)

Note: Under the right circumstances (read: in a solution with the correct acidity like your pickle brine) the sulphur compounds in garlic that are responsible for its incredible flavor react with the acidic water and cause the garlic to change color. This is totally normal and doesn’t change the edibility of your pickles. If it happens to you, you need not worry about eating your creations, they are safe. However it does look strange, and I guess I’m just particular enough to prefer my garlic not to be blue. From what I’ve observed the way to avoid the phenomenon is to keep your garlic cloves whole. Just add whole, unchopped, uncrushed garlic cloves and your garlic should maintain a normal, non-blue color!

Once your brine has come to a boil and all the salt had dissolved into the water pour it over the cucumber/herb mixture in your container. Use something heavy and waterproof like a plate or another bowl or in my case a serving spoon that wedges perfectly into my tall narrow container to weight the cucumbers down in the brine so that they’re all completely covered.

Then you leave. For 24 hours or so. You can leave for longer even, up to 48 hours, and in my reading I ascertained that the longer you leave your pickles the more sour they become. However I’ve found that 24 hours seems to be a perfect amount of time to achieve my desired result.

After your pickles have had their rest, you can transfer them to smaller jars or containers. I like to transfer the garlic cloves and bay leaves in with them as well. Once your pickles are in their respective containers, pour in enough brine to cover them and refrigerate. They will last 3-4 weeks.

To end I’d like first to note that my original attempt with the English cucumbers turned out rather more floppy than crisp. As far as I’ve read, and what I’ve found in my own trials is the best way to get crisp delicious pickles is to choose crisp cucumbers. This will be achieved by avoiding ‘salad’ cucumber varieties which tend to be softer and going for varieties of cucumbers marked ‘pickling’ or ‘crisp’ as they have a more desirable texture to begin with.Secondly, I’d like to add that while this configuration of ingredients has resulted in the best pickle to quell my personal desires, there are a lot more options that you could exercise if you wanted to try for variations. In fact, there is a herb/spice blend you can pick up at the store that’s literally called ‘pickling spice’ that has a whole bunch of nice things in it in addition to the things I chose to use. I forwent that because it turned out to be unnecessary for me but you could always add some yourself. Or you could go crazy and add hot peppers, or pearl onions or … whatever you want! With a little experimentation you can come up with your own perfect pickle.