Wordless Wednesday: To make up for the onions

This picture makes me feel better about the onions.  Clovey Pickled Beets and Really Dill Pickles, I'm ready for Christmas.

Canning Disaster! Not botulism disaster, but a disaster none-the-less.

The post formerly known as: Pickled Pearl Onions

My grandmother used to make the most delicious pickled pearl onions.  I’ve never had anything else like them.  I have what I thought was the recipe but after speaking to my aunts and my father I wasn’t sure.  One Aunt has a recipe that involves soaking the onions in a Crock for six (SIX!) whole days. She remembers the crock breaking though and not being replaced and we ate these for years. 

After finding the perfect onions at an Italian grocer on the Danforth, I decided to try it. I thought long and hard on how to approach making these.  The pressure was high.  My dad mentioned the disappointment of biting into bitter commercially prepared pickles while my aunt talked of other people’s versions being sickly sweet.  My mother is sure that the 24 hour soak can’t be right as my grandmother was way too modern for such an old fashioned method.

So, I went out on a limb and guessed that she kept the flavouring of the original recipe but moved on to the more modern method, which only involves a 24 hour soak.  I split the difference and did a fridge soak for 48 hours.

After finalizing my approach and making all the necessary conversions, I made the brine, peeled a gazillion tiny onions, carefully cut off their ends with scissors, soaked them, pickled them up, and processed them in a hot water bath for 30 (THIRTY!) minutes, photo documenting every step.  

Today was the day, I opened a jar, only to find the bitter taste of absolute failure. 

This is how bad they are.  They are simply the worst things I’ve ever tasted. And certainly not my grandmother’s famous onions that went so well with roast beef.

So please, if you have a recipe for pickled onions, please share.  You can post it in the comments or link to your own blog.  If I try your recipe, I’ll even send you a jar. 

In the meantime, enjoy this photo essay on how to make really labour intensive and expensive compost.  Let me note, that in the case of improperly canned preserves, never compost the evidence, throw it right into the trash.  These particular jars were canned perfectly, they’re safe to eat, but you really couldn’t pay me to.

Oh, and Jen and Andy, you’ll want to throw that jar out.  Shana, you too.

Recipe: Pickled Beets are Delicious

Beets are one of my favourite vegetables.  They are so easy to grow, grow beautifully in a container or in the garden, come in so many colours and shapes and even striped.  I also enjoy that the entire plant is edible, the tops are great steamed with vinegar and butter, and although a roasted beet is a delicious thing what I really crave is a pickled beet with lots of cloves.

This recipe is very versatile.  I will give the small batch amounts, but know that you can scale this recipe up quite easily.  This round I have processed 4 times the amounts listed so you might just get a jar of beets for Christmas.

You will need:

10 medium beets; about 3 ½ pounds

1 ¼ cup sugar

1 ¼ cup of water

1 cup of vinegar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp of cloves

To prep your beets, give them a good wash and cut off the tops, save them for dinner.  Boil beets for 45 minutes, this will cook them and make it easy to remove the skins.

While they’re boiling it’s a good time to prep all your jars by cleaning them and starting a few of them boiling up in a big pot.  Start heating up all your lids and rings in a smaller pot on medium heat.  Do this on your back two burners, as you’re about to have all four going at once.

Its also time to make your brine.  Combine vinegar, water, sugar, salt and cloves in a pan and boil until sugar and salt are dissolved.  You’ll need to strain out most of the cloves or put them in cheesecloth or a tea ball.  Keep it going on low heat.

After 45 minutes, plunge your beets into cold water.  You should now be able to rub the skins off with your hands.  Do this under running water or in a full sink and your hands won’t stain.  Not that there’s anything wrong with purple hands.  Have a knife and peeler on hand to get rid of any rough spots.

Cut the beets into slices or wedges.

Now pack your boiled jars with the beets and cover with brine.  I like to throw 1 or 2 cloves in with each jar.  You need to leave ¼ inch of room at the top and make sure the jar lips are clean.

Put the lids on, finger tight, and heat process for 10 minutes.  

Then find a nice cool place out of direct sunlight to store them.  This recipe is nice because you can eat them almost right away, or wait a few weeks and they’ll get even better.

I really like these short jars as they fit just enough to finish at one meal, therefore perfect for a potluck. They are 8 oz wide mouth Ball elite jars.

Stay tuned; I think I have enough touchstone golds left to make one jar of yellow beets.

As with all canning recipes, please follow safe canning practices.