On Friday night I decided to stay in and can
beets. Beets. Pickled beets. Not a record breaker for the sexiest
use of time. I like the sound of ‘putting up’ though, an old-timey
idiom. A practice of preservation, and thrift. (Again, not the
sexiest thing I’ve said. Let’s move on.)
I’m hoping to have beets for you soon,
but for now I thought I’d bring up a much less labor-intensive recipe.
Pickled asparagus. Adapted from Kevin West—Master Food Preserver—from his
new book, Saving the Season: A Cook’s Guide to Home Canning, Pickling, and Preserving which comes out just in time for the start of summer.
To say I adapted the recipe is really not
fair. The original was titled Pickled Asparagus with Tarragon and Green
Garlic. Except I didn’t have tarragon. Or green garlic. Or
the temperament to fuss with Ball jars and a hot water bath on a Monday night.
So really, this is a distant, distant relative to the original. I still used asparagus (grown from my
grandmother’s garden, imported by my dad a few weeks ago) and the same
proportion of vinegar, salt, and sugar. If that counts for something.
Never mind. These pickles are a fresh
spring stand-in for the classic Vlasic. They’re sour, and crunchy, and
have enough acid to let you know they’re a pickle. They’d be a fabulous
addition to a niçoise salad.
Or in a banh mi. Or chopped up in one
of those pasta salads with salami and tri-color rotini that scream summer
cookout. Or added to your favorite potato number, mayo-ed or
otherwise. Point is, they are doers, multi-taskers, pickled workhorses.
And since they cure in the refrigerator, they
aren’t going to usurp a precious Friday night. The beets will be ready to taste
this weekend. And if their pickling liquid is any indication, they are
going to be doozies, as well.
And so it shall be. The summer of pickle.
Picked Asparagus Spears
Inspired by Saving the Season: A
Cook’s Guide to Home Canning, Pickling, and Preserving by Kevin West
Ingredients:
1½ pounds of asparagus
1½ cups white distilled vinegar
1½ cups water
1½ tsp kosher salt
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp white peppercorns
½ tsp juniper berries
½ tsp fennel seed
½ tsp whole coriander
½ tsp mustard seed
3 springs oregano
2 garlic cloves
Instructions:
In a large
pot, heat enough water to blanch the asparagus. In a medium saucepan, add the vinegar, water, salt, sugar,
and spices (all except the garlic) and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, snap the bottom third end off each asparagus stalk by bending it until it breaks; discard the
ends. Prepare a bowl of ice water
large enough to fit the asparagus.
Salt the boiling
blanching water and place the asparagus in for 60-90
seconds, until pliable but still firm. Remove the asparagus with
tongs and place in ice water to halt the cooking. Drain the asparagus and then pack the stalks in a jar(s). I used one tall
32-ounce cylindrical Weck jar. (If
you have smaller jars you may need to trim the asparagus; you should do this prior to blanching.) Place the garlic in between the
spears.
Pull out the
oregano and bring the pickling liquid back to a boil; carefully ladle it over
the asparagus. Securely cover and chill in
the refrigerator for a week before eating.
Makes about
20-30 pickled asparagus spears, depending on the size
Notes:
-West has
very detailed instructions for canning this and other pickled recipes, so be
sure to check it out if pickles and putting up are your thing.
-West called for white-wine vinegar, which is smoother and his go-to vinegar when pickling. I didn't have that either, so I used distilled white vinegar. You could consider upping the sugar context if you will be pickling in your fridge and plan on using distilled white vinegar, to round out the flavor a bit.