Pickles are easy to make by fermenting vegetables in salt water or vinegar with spices. Cucumbers are the most popular, but other vegetables are used depending on availability. Pickles are eaten as a snack or added to meals. Pickle mixes are available in supermarkets for easier preparation.
Dill pickles, also known simply as pickles, are fairly easy to make and a staple in many cuisines around the world. To make them, a vegetable — often but not always cucumbers — is fermented in salt water or vinegar, along with a variety of spices, including dill. They were historically popular in areas where cold winters prevented residents from getting fresh vegetables after the summer. Cucumbers are the most popular type of vegetable used to make pickles, but others are used depending on local availability.
People eat pickles as a snack, on sandwiches and hamburgers, or as an addition to salads or hot meals. Different cultures pickle different vegetables. In East Asia, people pickle turnips and radish, while mushrooms and eggplants are popular in Russia. Pickled onions are popular in England and peppers are a typical pickled dish in Romania.
Dill pickles are basically fermented greens in a mixture of water and salt, or alternatively, vinegar. Both blends produce a slightly different product that will stay edible for a long time. Because the blend has a pH of 4.6 or lower, the bacteria can’t survive, helping the vegetable last longer. Different add-ons produce different results, including color and consistency changes; adding grape leaves to containers, for example, can preserve crunch.
Pickle mixes are now available for sale in most supermarkets and are designed to make the process easier. Simmering the mixture in water and then adding the pickles once the mixture has returned to room temperature is all a homemaker needs to do. Pickle mixes come in a variety of flavors, including sweet, hot, extra sour, and kosher. Dill pickle recipes call for adding some dill to the mix, and fresh dill, dried herbs, or dill seeds can be used. Regardless of the type of blend used, once the pickles have been canned in the liquid, the entire jar should be boiled in water for 5 to 10 minutes. At that point, the pickles are ready to be stored.
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