Recipe: Really Really Dill Pickles

After posting the photos of the pickles I’ll be giving to friends and family over the holidays, I realized that I never got around to posting the recipe for these great dill pickles.

This recipe is adapted from the Complete Book of Small Batch Preserving Favourite Dill Pickles recipe.  I doubled this recipe without any issues.  I used the 8 & 16 oz Ball Jar Elite, which are sort of a funny shape for pickles, hence the untraditional dill slices.  They’re a hit though, excellent on or with a sandwich. This recipe should make about 8  x 16 oz jars, the spicing is written out for the 16 oz jars, just half it for the smaller ones.

Although I really like the taste and the crispness is fine, next year I’ll brine them over night in the refrigerator. It just makes a better pickle and its really not that much extra work.

16-20 small pickling cucumbers (about 3lbs/1.5kg)

2 cups white vinegar

2 cups water

2 tbsp pickling salt

1 tbsp granulated sugar

1 head of fresh dill per jar

1 small clove of garlic per jar          

1/2 teaspoon of mustard per jar

 Cut your cucumbers up into the desired shape, slices, hunks, it doesn’t mater.

Combine vinegar, water, salt and sugar in a large stainless steel or enamel saucepan and bring to a boil.

Prepare your hot jars. Place 1 head fresh dill, 1 clove garlic (I used the little bit of garlic I grew this year) and ½ teaspoon of mustard seeds (I found two different colours at the Big Carrot, their organic spice section is phenomenal) in each pint jar. 

Pack cucumbers into jars and pour boiling vinegar mixture over cucumbers to within ½ inch of rim.  Process for 10 minutes.  Please be mindful to follow good canning practices and don’t eat anything that you suspect hasn’t been processed properly.

I’m really pleased with these pickles.  They really pack a punch.  Even though I reduced the spice in the small jars, they’re really dilly.