Sweet, luscious morsels of pickled cucumber. Delicious in a relish tray. From the trusted home preserving book, "So Easy to Preserve" from the University of Georgia.
Course Pickles
Cuisine American
Keyword Cucumber
Prep Time 1 hourhour
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Total Time 1 hourhour30 minutesminutes
Servings 8x ½ litre (US pint) jars OR 4 x 1 litre (US quart) jars
Wash cucumbers well. Trim small sliver off each end.
Cut cucumbers into rounds or strips.
Place in bowl, toss with salt.
Cover with 5 cm (2 inches) of ice cubes or crushed ice.
Let stand for 3 to 4 hours. Refrigerate if possible. Otherwise add more ice as needed.
Meanwhile mix everything from the vinegar down to the mustard seed in a very large pot. Set aside.
Drain the cucumbers well.
Bring the pickling solution to a boil.
Add the cucumber slices to the pot, and heat them until they are just hot.
Pack cucumber slices into jars, leaving 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
To each jar, add (optionally) 2 slices of fresh onion and ⅛th teaspoon Pickle Crisp (¼ teaspoon for the litre / quart jars)
Pour heated pickling solution into jars, leaving 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
If you are short of heated vinegar, just quickly zap some more vinegar with a bit of sweetener in it in microwave, mind surge effect when removing from microwave.
Debubble, adjust headspace.
Wipe jar rims.
Put lids on.
Process in a water bath or steam canner.
Process either size jar for 5 minutes. Increase time as needed for your altitude (see table below.)