Best cucumber pickle recipes. Special Awards.
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Chutney and Pickles | 65 comments
Photo of award winning cucumber pickle
Jo’s Award Winning Cucumber Pickle Recipe is at the bottom of this article.
My friend Jo is great. She shares her recipes. Even her special ones.Three years ago she told me she had a great recipe for cucumber chutney, if we ever have a glut. I’d just given her a cucumber, one of our bumper “count on one hand” cucumber harvest, so I didn’t trouble her for the recipe at the time.
This year, everything changed. I noticed that we had masses of flowers on our greenhouse cucumbers. Tiny dolls house sized cucumbers followed and they flourished. We were so pleased. By August we finally had a glut. I was jubilant as I dialled Jo’s number.We have made four large batches of different cucumber pickle/chutney recipes this summer.
Some were described as chutney and some as pickles. We thought that all were more of a pickle than traditional chutney. In each one, the vegetables float in the vinegar.Pickles need only a month to mature, compared to the two month (plus) wait for traditional chutney. The month was up today, and along with a recipe request last night, we decided to spend spent a happy half hour tasting them all.
The two that received The Cottage Smallholder Award were Jo’s Cucumber Chutney (England) and Granny’s Very Sweet Cucumber Pickle (United States). I found the latter on the Internet.
Jo’s cucumber pickle has a great depth of flavour and texture. Very good with cheese but subtle and piquant enough to serve with a really rich chicken liver pate, or chopped fine and added to a salad or sauce. It’s typically European in its style and taste. We loved it and Danny pleaded with me not to give any more away.
Granny’s pickle is a totally different animal; sweet and sour and crunchy. Although I’ve only been to the States a couple of times, I know that this pickle is quintessentially America at it’s best. This would be a great dolloped on Aberdeen Angus burgers or served on the side with thick juicy slices of smoked ham. Perfect in rare beef sandwiches, along with the mayo and mustard. No wonder Granny’s grand son-in-law uses 200 cucumbers a year making this recipe. We have pondered over this fact. Does he bulk buy or does he grow them all?
Granny’s grandson-in-law, Jim Roche, works in the computer science department of Rochester University. click this link for his recipe;
| Jo’s Award Winning Cucumber Pickle Recipe |
- 4 large cucumbers
- 3 medium onions
- 2 oz/50g of salt
- ** For the syrup **
- 1pt/570ml of white wine vinegar
- 1lb/454g of soft brown sugar
- ½ level tsp of ground turmeric
- ½ level tsp of ground cloves
- 1 tbsp of mustard seed (we used black)
- (Being independent, we also put a large sprig of wild fennel in each jar when we added the vegetables).
- Wash cucumber and slice very thinly (we used Danny’s natty Japanese mandolin for slicing the cucumber and the onion).
- Peel the onions and slice very thinly.
- In a large bowl, layer cucumbers and onions with a sprinkling of salt in between the layers. Weigh down with a plate.
- Stand for three hours.
- After three hours, pour away the liquid and rinse the cucumbers and onions under running water twice.
- Put your jars in the oven to sterilised them. (How do I sterilise jars? See tricks and tips below).
- Put vinegar, sugar and spices in a stainless steel or non stick saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the sugar is dissolved.
- Add the cucumber and onions to the saucepan and bring to the boil.
- Boil syrup and vegetables for a couple of minutes. Remove the vegetables with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Reduce remaining syrup for 15-20 min.
- After ten minutes or so, gently fill warm, sterilised jars with vegetables. Don’t press down.
- When syrup has reduced, pour over vegetables in jars.
- Cover immediately with plastic lined, sterilised metal lids. (How do I sterilise lids? See tricks and tips below).
- When cold, label and store in a cool, dark place, away from damp.
Tricks and tips:
How do I sterilise jars and lids?
We collect jars all year round for our jelly, chutney and jam making sessions. I try to soak off labels and store the clean jars and metal plastic coated screw-top lids in an accessible place. The sterilising method that we used is simple. Just before making jam, jelly,’cheese’, chutney or pickles.I quickly wash and rinse the jars and place them upside down in a cold oven. I set the temperature to 160c/140c for fan assisted. When the oven has reached the right temperature I turn off the heat. The jars will stay warm for quite a while. I only use plastic lined lids for preserves as the all-metal lids can go rusty and if there is vinegar in the jar, this can react badly with metal. I boil lids for five minutes in water to sterilise them. If I use Le Parfait jars, I do the same with the rubber rings.
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I made this pickle recently and it’s absolutely delicious – I wish I had made more – even the kids love it!
I have just sampled this and it is absolutely gorgeous.
I have therefore started another lot, with my 3rd glut of cucumbers….
After I’d reduced the syrup for 15 minutes, there wasn’t enough liquid to cover the vegetables. What should I do? Add more vinegar?
Hi Peter
Oh bad luck.
Make more syrup with the vinegar sugar ans spices would be the route that I would take.
Our weather in the Pacific Northwest has been as cool as cucumber, so my patience will pay off when the first cukes are picked and I get to try this recipe. Thanks for sharing it.
Hello Claire
I’m sorry but I can’t help. I have never even heard of apple cucumbers.
Hi, Have been doing the pickles for a while, but have now an abundance of Apple Cucumbers and am wondering if they could be used in this recipe. I don’t think they could be but am interested if any out there have done this.
Thanks Claire
Hi Marion
Welcome back! Yes these cucumber pickles are great.
Could you pickle the horse radish? Or freeze it?
TRYING TO FIND A WAY OF PRESERVING MY HORSERADISH OTHER THAN THE USUAL CREAM SAUCE ,WHICH IS’NT GOING TO KEEP FOR VERY LONG.I have an idea ,but being a complete chicken, would would love some input before I destroy the entire harvest with my experiments.
AS you can see from my last years comments this cuc pickle is the best ever and I can ‘tweak’ it with whatever herbs I have most of to give each jar a special ‘hit’.Tractorfactor Steve sell it !Put some deisel in your tank with the procedes..barter it .you will not get any complaints..just folk wanting MORE.
Hi Ryan
I’m not sure how many jars this fills. Apologies.
Hello Marchandoj
Yes platic lids will be fine. We’ve had a good cuc years too.