Traditional New Brunswick Lady Ashburn Pickles

I’ve never made mustard pickles before of any sort, though I’ve tasted them lots of times. Making them myself just never appealed to me that much. Then I read about these, which are a regional specialty in New Brunswick. My husband, a New Brunswicker himself, had never heard of them either. Maybe they never made it to the mighty Miramichi? 

Anyhow, we were both intrigued, so I decided to try a small batch and see if we like them. The verdict - they’re delicious. Like, really, really good. Next year, I’ll fine-slice them, rather than rough chop, so they’ll be perfect for piling on hotdogs and hamburgers. 

Cucumbers and onions, post being weighted and draining over night.

You’ll need: 

• 7 med–large cucumbers, peeled, seeded, and chopped 

• 4 cups of onions, finely chopped

• 1/4 cup salt

• 2 1/2 cups white vinegar

• 2 cups sugar

• 3 T flour*

• 1 tbsp dry mustard

• 1 tbsp turmeric

• 1 tsp mustard seed

• 1 tsp celery seed

• 4 pint jars 

• 4 snap lids and rings

Instructions for cooking and canning:

1. Alternate layers of cucumbers and onions in a large dish, sprinkling each layer with salt.

2. Place heavy plate on top and let sit for several hours or overnight.

3. Drain liquid from cucumber and onion mixture and rinse off salt.

4. Mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl.

5. Put rinsed cucumbers and onions into a large pot, and add vinegar and dry ingredients, stirring well.

6. At the same time, begin heating your water bath.

7. Cook pickle mixture over low heat for 45 minutes to one hour while stirring often.

8. Scoop a small amount of water from the canner into a small pot and put your snap lids in there to heat.

9. Make sure your sparkling clean mason jars are at least warm. If you are working in a vigorously air conditioned room (not me, I’m melting), you may want to heat them in the oven or give them a dip in the water bath to bring up their temp. Cold jar plus hot pickle is not a good match, I hear.

10. Quickly ladle the hot pickle mixture into warm jars, using a wide mouth funnel. Leave about an inch of headspace.

11. "Bubble" each jar with a skewer or chopstick to release any trapped air. Wipe each rim with a clean damp paper towel. Place a heated snap lid down and screw the ring on finger tip tight. 

12. Put the jars into your water bath canner. Make sure there is at least an inch of water above the top of your jars. Put the pot lid on and return to the boil for 10 minutes. 

    Gorgeous! And tasty right away. I bet they’ll be even better in 6 weeks or so. 

*I know! Flour in pickles, is that safe? Apparently, it is indeed in small quantities in mustard pickle recipes. I learned something! 

I think a uniform slice will also make them a little less random looking. Way tasty though.

Pickled red onions (or pink pickled onions, as the case may be...)

I've been meaning to make these for a while as a good project for long-storing vegetables when there's nothing fresh and local, but I hadn't found the ambition. Then, a couple of weeks ago I had a steak salad that was topped with delicate slices of pickled red onions. A very nice touch, especially since I often find fresh red onion in a salad overpowering. I skimmed a bunch of recipes and MacGyvered my own based on the spices that appealed to me. So here we are.

You'll need:

• 3 lbs red onions (I was a bit short on reds, so I supplemented with a couple of small cooking onions we had on hand)

• 4 cups red wine vinegar

• 3/4 cup white sugar

• 4 T salt

• 6 pint (500 ml) jars

• 6 snap lids and rings

And per jar:

• 5 peppercorns

• 2 whole allspice

• 1/4 t celery seed

• 1 t whole mustard seed

• 1 bay leaf

• Pinch red pepper flakes

I am equal parts in love and terrified by this device. 

1. Wash your jars in hot, sudsy water. Rinse well. They'll get sterile in the water bath.

2. Peel and slice onions thinly into half moons. For the first slice, the mandoline was set at  1/4 " and that was way too thick. I ended up between 1/16" and 1/32". (What is that, 3/64 of an inch? I think my brain just broke.) Anyway, thin.

3. Start heating the water in your canner now, so it'll be getting hot when you need it. 

4. Place your chosen spices into each jar. Lots of options for spices in different recipes, and some advocated for no spices at all. I went with a medley of favourites. 

5. Stuff your onion slices evenly into each jar. Pack them in pretty tight. You'll get shrinkage and it'll be more roomy once you add the brine.

6. Combine water, vinegar, sugar, and salt into a large pot and bring to a boil. Stir and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. 

7. Put your snap lids in hot water to soften. 

8. Using a ladle and wide mouth funnel, fill your jars with brine to within 1/4 inch of the jar's rim.

9. "Bubble" each jar with a skewer or chopstick to release any trapped air. Wipe each rim with a clean damp paper towel. Place a heated snap lid down and screw the ring on finger tip tight.

10. Put the jars into your water bath canner. Make sure there is at least an inch of water above the top of your jars. Put the pot lid on and return to the boil for 10 minutes. Don't start your timer until the water is boiling.

11. Remove jars from the canner. 

12. Admire and wait for the pops. If any jars don't seal properly, they'll keep for quite a long while in the fridge. 

Edited to add that the spice choices have turned out to be good ones! I thought they would be, but I'm relieved to say that they actually are for sure. So far these onions have been enjoyed on fish tacos, meatball subs, and (at least by Dave) mixed with yellow mustard as some weird sort of side dish. Chacun à son goût!

Classic dill pickles

You'll need:

• Mini cucumbers, a whole bunch (I used the equivalent of almost four 4-litre baskets or so) 

• Equal parts white vinegar and water (I used about 16 cups of each)

• 1 T of kosher salt per cup of water (I used 16 T)

• 1/2 T of white sugar per cup of water (I used 8 T)

• 30 pint (500 ml) widemouth Mason jars 

• 30 snap lids and rings

And per jar:

• 1 large fresh dill head

• 1 clove garlic

• 1 t mustard seed

Directions for cooking and canning:

1. Wash your Mason jars in hot soapy water. Rinse well.

2. Trim both ends of each cucumber and slice in half.

3. Fill your canner about half-way or so with water and heat on high.

4. Combine vinegar, water, salt, sugar in a large, heavy pot and bring it to a boil.

5. Working in batches of as many jars as your canner will fit, add dill, garlic, and mustard seed to each jar. My canner comfortably holds 7 widemouth pint jars at a time.

6. Pack the cucumbers tightly into the jars. This is where the widemouth style makes life easier.

7. Scoop a small amount of water into a small pot and put your snap lids in there to heat. 

8. Once the pickle brine is boiling hot, ladle it into the pickle jars making sure the cucumbers are well-covered. You could also pour it into a heat-proof pitcher and use that to pour into the jars, but that much pouring of large quantities of boiling liquid sounds terrifying to me. Leave about a half-inch or so of head space.

9. "Bubble" each jar with a skewer or chopstick to release any trapped air. It's a little tricky when the cucumbers are tightly packed. Do the best you can. Wipe each rim with a clean damp paper towel. Place a heated snap lid down and screw the ring on finger tip tight.

10. Put the jars into your water bath canner. Make sure there is at least an inch of water above the top of your jars. Put the pot lid on and return to the boil for 15 minutes. Don't start your timer until the water is boiling. 

11. Remove jars from the canner.

12. Repeat the process with the next batch. Easy peasy!

See how the lids on these don't yet have that slight circular dent in the middle? They haven't sealed yet. You may hear a pop! when a lid seals. You can tell they're sealed if there is no little give under your finger when you gently push them down.

Make sure all the lids have sealed. Stash any that don't seal properly in the fridge (ALL of mine did, woo hoo!, but sometimes they don't for whatever reason), and use them within a few weeks. The properly sealed ones should sit for at least 6 weeks before you dig in and can be stored for simply ages. 

The entire sink (1/2 bushel) of mini cucumbers transforms like magic into 41 gorgeous jars of pickles! The ones are top are bread and butter.

Bread and butter pickles for mom

You'll need:

This is what a 1/2 bushel of mini-cucumbers looks like when you haul it home from the Farmers' Market and put them in the sink to wash. I was feeling ambitious. The market tends to do that to me at this time of year.

• 24 cups thinly sliced cucumbers

• 5 medium (think baseball-sized) white onions

• 1/3 cup kosher salt

• 3 3/4 cups white vinegar

• 2 cups white sugar

• 3 T whole mustard seed

• 1 1/2 T whole celery seed

• 1  t ground turmeric

• 11 pint (500 ml) Mason jars

• 11 snap lids and rings

Directions for cooking and canning:

1. Rinse the cucumbers well. Trim the ends. 

2. Set up your entertainment system. 24 cups will take a while. I'm finally watching Gilmore Girls about a decade after it left the air. Yay, Netflix.

3. Slice the cucumbers thinly. I used the mandoline (or mangler as it's known in our house because it tends to bite!) set at 1/16". 

4. Layer the cucumbers in a strainer, sprinkling salt between layers.  Set the strainer inside a larger pot or bowl to catch the drips and set it aside to drain for at least 3 hours. I left it overnight in the fridge.

5. Thinly slice the onions. Maybe they were supposed to be salted and drained as well? I didn't do that. Everything was fine. 
6. Wash your Mason jars in hot soapy water. Rinse well.
7. Fill your canning pot halfway-ish with water and put it on to heat. Put 6 of your jars in there to heat up. While you don't necessarily need to pre-sterilize, you'll be packing the jars with hot stuff, so it's important for the jars to be hot as well. 

8. Put the vinegar, sugar, spices, and any remaining salt into a large pot. Bring it to a boil, giving it a stir to help dissolve the sugar. 
9. Shake the cucumbers in the strainer to drip off as much of the liquid as you can, but don't rinse off the salt. Add alternating handfuls of cucumbers and onions to the hot pickle brine. 
10. Stir everything together thoroughly and bring it back up to a gentle boil.
11. Scoop a small amount of water from the canner into a small pot and put your snap lids in there to heat.
12. Retrieve your hot jars from the boiling water and quickly ladle the hot pickle mixture into hot jars, using a wide mouth funnel. Leave about an inch of headspace.
13. "Bubble" each jar with a skewer or chopstick to release any trapped air. Wipe each rim with a clean damp paper towel. Place a heated snap lid down and screw the ring on finger tip tight. 
14. Put the jars into your water bath canner. Make sure there is at least an inch of water above the top of your jars. Put the pot lid on and return to the boil for 15 minutes. Don't start your timer until the water is boiling. 
15. Remove jars from the canner (or let them sit in the canner until everything calms down). Put the remaining 5 jars into the canner to heat up and repeat the process. 

There you go! Eleven pints, ready to eat... after at least 6 weeks of waiting for them to flavourify in the jars.