Some of you may remember a thread from last year - one in which I showed us making our own vinegar. Well having that sorted, we chose this year to ty to use it to produce entirley "self sufficient" pickles
As a family we are tying to be more and more self sufficient - learning to make and grow what we need. It’s an endless and ultimately impossible quest, but for us, it has many advantages. Not only do we control the quality of what we consume, but we learn lots of new and interesting things, and we come to appreciate the skill and effort that has gone into our food, our tools and indeed our lives.
This story began in February preparing our veg bed and applying a heavy top dressing of compost which was lightly forked in. In April we planted out our shallots. I love shallots - they produce a big clump of bulbs for each one you plant. Keeping maybe 20% back means that you are ready to start again next year. Keeping more than that means your crop expands each year at no cost.
Within a couple of weeks we got to watch them grow - each little "shoot" will be a new shallot if all goes well!
Within weeks, this bed was transformed and we could almost watch them grow
Now we wanted to produce truly "self sufficient" pickled onions - and that means pickling spice! So amongst what we grew this year were:
Mustard seed (another crop that allows you to keep a proportion for next year)
Bay leaves
Corriander seed (yet another self sustaining spice)
And Chillis - birds eye chillies are needed here although we grow many varieties
By July (really only 18 weeks from planting), we were ready to harvest. The alternate wet & heat of this year seems to have made all our crops do really well - this is one of many piles of shallots. These alliums are a joy to harvest - grab the growth and pull - no hard effort needed
Now to preserve pickled onions well, the art is to get rid of as much moisture as we can and replace it with that vinegar I mentioned before. The first step is to dry out all the top growth. I do this on old greenhouse staging that makes great drying racks. Since the tops are wire you get good airflow all around and this reduces the risk of the deaded mould that will take over where moisture accumulates
A few weeks later and you can see the difference
For the next stage you need to be at home for a couple of days. Top and tail (cut off the top growth and roots) and peel all your shallots. Your eyes may stream so I put the peeled onions in a bowl of water. With any decent sized crop you will need several bowls! A big bag bucket is also needed for all the "peelings". Part of our ethos is to return all the peelings to the compost heap that will be returned to the land in the spring - otherwise we are exhausting the soil without replacing nutrients. There’s no "hippy" element to that - but without nutrients in the soil our crop size gets smaller!
Now your hands will be wet and slippery and stinking of onion by now. That’s because there is still loads of liquid in the onions. To get more of that out we will soak them for a day or two in stong brine. I make a brine solution of 3oz of coarse salt to 1 pint of water - you will need several pints according to crop size. I do this in hot water but leave it to cool before using or you will cook the shallots - which is not what we need to do!
Pour all the old water off your shallots, rinse them and put them back in the bowls. Cover the shallots in brine and then add a plate and weights to keep the shallots under the surface of the brine. Osmosis will then draw liquid from the dilute solution (onion juice) to the strong the solution (brine) across the membrane (the onion).
Leave the shallots for 24 hours for a softer onion or 48 for a crunchy one.
Next we need our pickling vinegar. Roughly you will need 1/2 pint of vinegar per pound of shallots. First up assemble your spices. I’m using mustard seed, bay leaves, chillies and coriander (cilantro) seed. Traditionally peppercorns are added but I cant grow them so they are out
Be careful in the next step - many do this in a bowl over a pan of water - vinegar is acidic and will attack your pans. Glass pans are good as are enamel if in good nick. I use specialist pans - copper is out though!
Put your vinegar in the pan, add the spices and bring to the boil
Leave the vinegar to cool and infuse once a boil has been reached. This will take three or four hours.
Whilst that is happening I check over the preserving jars. Sadly one of the seals have perished.
Easily fixed though - replacement seals are a couple of quid for a bagful - better replace than lose the contents!
Okay, when that’s done and the vinegar has cooled, drain the onions and rinse. We have a large colander that balances across the sink - really useful for jobs like this!
Pack the onions into jars. I find a variety of sizes useful - smaller ones end up as gifts and "thank yous". Larger ones last well for home use. Having many sizes also means you dont end up with half a jar!
Next strain your vinegar into a jug - much easier to fill the jars from a jug I find
Fill each jar to ensure the onions are covered and seal. The shallots will absorb the vinegar since we have driven so much liquid out of them in earlier processes. This will preserve them for a long time - not sure how long but I have eaten our home made ones several years old and they just get better with time
Seal well and leave for at least a month before digging in
So is that a slef sufficient pickled onion? No, sadly far from it What we can do:
Grow the shallots
Grow, harvest and preserve the spices
Make the vingar from our own produce
What we cant yet do:
Produce all our own fuel and do this on the "range"
Make the jars and seals
Make the tools and utensils involved
We plan to remedy that though.
I know this isnt really "Bushcraft" but it might be interesting to some. To me, preserving these lost skills is an extension of the same ethic. A hundred and fifty years ago this would be be something done in most houses. I wonder how many do it now?
Red
As a family we are tying to be more and more self sufficient - learning to make and grow what we need. It’s an endless and ultimately impossible quest, but for us, it has many advantages. Not only do we control the quality of what we consume, but we learn lots of new and interesting things, and we come to appreciate the skill and effort that has gone into our food, our tools and indeed our lives.
This story began in February preparing our veg bed and applying a heavy top dressing of compost which was lightly forked in. In April we planted out our shallots. I love shallots - they produce a big clump of bulbs for each one you plant. Keeping maybe 20% back means that you are ready to start again next year. Keeping more than that means your crop expands each year at no cost.
Within a couple of weeks we got to watch them grow - each little "shoot" will be a new shallot if all goes well!
Within weeks, this bed was transformed and we could almost watch them grow
Now we wanted to produce truly "self sufficient" pickled onions - and that means pickling spice! So amongst what we grew this year were:
Mustard seed (another crop that allows you to keep a proportion for next year)
Bay leaves
Corriander seed (yet another self sustaining spice)
And Chillis - birds eye chillies are needed here although we grow many varieties
By July (really only 18 weeks from planting), we were ready to harvest. The alternate wet & heat of this year seems to have made all our crops do really well - this is one of many piles of shallots. These alliums are a joy to harvest - grab the growth and pull - no hard effort needed
Now to preserve pickled onions well, the art is to get rid of as much moisture as we can and replace it with that vinegar I mentioned before. The first step is to dry out all the top growth. I do this on old greenhouse staging that makes great drying racks. Since the tops are wire you get good airflow all around and this reduces the risk of the deaded mould that will take over where moisture accumulates
A few weeks later and you can see the difference
For the next stage you need to be at home for a couple of days. Top and tail (cut off the top growth and roots) and peel all your shallots. Your eyes may stream so I put the peeled onions in a bowl of water. With any decent sized crop you will need several bowls! A big bag bucket is also needed for all the "peelings". Part of our ethos is to return all the peelings to the compost heap that will be returned to the land in the spring - otherwise we are exhausting the soil without replacing nutrients. There’s no "hippy" element to that - but without nutrients in the soil our crop size gets smaller!
Now your hands will be wet and slippery and stinking of onion by now. That’s because there is still loads of liquid in the onions. To get more of that out we will soak them for a day or two in stong brine. I make a brine solution of 3oz of coarse salt to 1 pint of water - you will need several pints according to crop size. I do this in hot water but leave it to cool before using or you will cook the shallots - which is not what we need to do!
Pour all the old water off your shallots, rinse them and put them back in the bowls. Cover the shallots in brine and then add a plate and weights to keep the shallots under the surface of the brine. Osmosis will then draw liquid from the dilute solution (onion juice) to the strong the solution (brine) across the membrane (the onion).
Leave the shallots for 24 hours for a softer onion or 48 for a crunchy one.
Next we need our pickling vinegar. Roughly you will need 1/2 pint of vinegar per pound of shallots. First up assemble your spices. I’m using mustard seed, bay leaves, chillies and coriander (cilantro) seed. Traditionally peppercorns are added but I cant grow them so they are out
Be careful in the next step - many do this in a bowl over a pan of water - vinegar is acidic and will attack your pans. Glass pans are good as are enamel if in good nick. I use specialist pans - copper is out though!
Put your vinegar in the pan, add the spices and bring to the boil
Leave the vinegar to cool and infuse once a boil has been reached. This will take three or four hours.
Whilst that is happening I check over the preserving jars. Sadly one of the seals have perished.
Easily fixed though - replacement seals are a couple of quid for a bagful - better replace than lose the contents!
Okay, when that’s done and the vinegar has cooled, drain the onions and rinse. We have a large colander that balances across the sink - really useful for jobs like this!
Pack the onions into jars. I find a variety of sizes useful - smaller ones end up as gifts and "thank yous". Larger ones last well for home use. Having many sizes also means you dont end up with half a jar!
Next strain your vinegar into a jug - much easier to fill the jars from a jug I find
Fill each jar to ensure the onions are covered and seal. The shallots will absorb the vinegar since we have driven so much liquid out of them in earlier processes. This will preserve them for a long time - not sure how long but I have eaten our home made ones several years old and they just get better with time
Seal well and leave for at least a month before digging in
So is that a slef sufficient pickled onion? No, sadly far from it
What we can do:Grow the shallots
Grow, harvest and preserve the spices
Make the vingar from our own produce
What we cant yet do:
Produce all our own fuel and do this on the "range"
Make the jars and seals
Make the tools and utensils involved
We plan to remedy that though.
I know this isnt really "Bushcraft" but it might be interesting to some. To me, preserving these lost skills is an extension of the same ethic. A hundred and fifty years ago this would be be something done in most houses. I wonder how many do it now?
Red
