Mix the following three ingredients together in a big bowl:
8 Cups thinly sliced cucumbers
2 Cups thinly sliced onions
1/4 Cup salt
Let stand 6 hours or overnight. Drain very well! Then place them in a pan.
Then add:
2 Cups vinegar (5)
3 Cups granular sugar (7 1/2)
2 Tsp. celery seeds (5)
2 Sticks cinnamon (5)
2 Tsp. white mustard seeds (5)
2 Tsp. turmeric (5)
Toss cukes to mix well. Bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. DO NOT LET IT BOIL.
Add a few small pieces of lump alum to each jar before adding pickles. Seal hot.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The above recipe was written by Aunt Sugar. I had the benefit of talking to her about it too. She said she only used pickling cucumbers when they looked great and were inexpensive. Otherwise, she just used regular cucumbers. It takes about 8 or 9 pickling cucumbers to make this recipe. I got three pint jars out of it.
The numbers in parentheses, I think, are for doubling the recipe. I remember her saying she liked it sweeter than the regular recipe called for, which leads me to this conclusion, since she asks for an extra cup and a half of sugar in the doubled version.
One final note: There is no need to water bath process these. Just seal them while they are hot with fresh, hot lids and they will seal up and the pickles will keep a better texture for you.
If anyone knows why the recipe calls for lump alum, I'd love to know. I found some and used it, but I don't know why.
3 comments:
Aunt Sug is smiling and I'm sure it would make Uncle Don smile too!
Wikipedia and a couple of other places say that it is used to maintain picke crispness.
Yup, alum, I just looked up, is for pickle crisping. It's made out of aluminum, though, which I don't really want to eat, so I'm gonna skip it and enjoy a slighty mushy pickle. :-) Also, ten minutes in the water bath canner is highly recommended. Old timers didn't process them, but I'm not about those weak seals. A good seal might make it to next year's fair, ya know! I don't think the processing time would have an ill effect on them.
I'm halfway through the jar you sent out, by the way. They're almost as good as Aunt Sugar's, but not quite. :-) When I come into a bunch of cucumbers tomorrow, I'm going to make these with the extra seasonings she seems to indicate. I'm going to skip the alum and process them, too. I don't mind a mushy bread-and-butter. It makes them easier to eat with bread and butter. :-)
farquack is the word of the day.
Post a Comment