Bread and Butter Pickles
Recipe courtesy Alton Brown
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
2 medium cucumbers, thinly sliced
1 cup water
1 cup cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
Pinch kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon celery seeds
1/2 teaspoon pickling spice
Combine onion and cucumber slices in a clean spring-top jar.
Combine the remaining ingredients in a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 4 full minutes to wake up the flavors of the spices.
Slowly pour the hot pickling liquid over the onion and cucumber slice, completely filling the jar. Allow the pickles to cool to room temperature before topping off with any remaining pickling liquid.
Refrigerate the pickles for a week to ripen. They will keep for about 2 months in the refrigerator.
Bread-and-Butter Pickles
From Cook's Country, August/September 2005
Traditional pickles can be an all-day affair to prepare, but our Bread-and-Butter Pickles recipe employs a shorter, easier method. We tossed the cucumber slices in salt and allowed them to sit in a colander for one hour. This drew off much of the cucumbers’ excess moisture and seasoned the slices, too. We simmered the classic seasonings—yellow mustard seeds, celery seeds, turmeric—with sugar and cider vinegar, then added the cucumbers and onions. We cooked the pickles for just five minutes, and then transferred them to a bowl so they wouldn’t continue to soften.
There's no consensus on how these sweet pickles got their name. Some claim the pickles are (like bread and butter) good enough to eat at every meal, others say it's because they are often eaten on or with sandwiches. Another theory is that they took their name from the word smorgasbord, which translates literally as "bread and butter table." It's not surprising that pickles often appear as part of this Swedish buffet.
1 pound pickling (Kirby) cucumbers, sliced crosswise into 1/8-inch disks
1 medium onion, halved and sliced thin
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 cup cider vinegar
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
1/4 teaspoon celery seeds
1/8 teaspoon ground tumeric
1. Toss cucumbers, onion, and salt in colander set over bowl. Let stand 1 hour. Discard drained liquid.
2. Bring vinegar, sugar, mustard seeds, celery seeds, and turmeric to boil in large saucepan. Reduce heat to low, add cucumbers and onion, and press to submerge in liquid. Cover and cook until cucumbers turn dullish olive-brown, about 5 minutes.
3. Transfer entire pan contents to glass bowl. Refrigerate, uncovered, at least 2 hours before serving. (Pickles can be refrigerated in covered container for up to 2 weeks.)
Makes 1 quart
