Re: [london.food] Preserving

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From: Roger Burton West
Subject: Re: [london.food] Preserving
Date: 10:56 on 06 Oct 2004
On Wed, Oct 06, 2004 at 09:45:39AM +0100, Kake L Pugh wrote:

>And at the moment I have some dill pickles, preserved lemons and
>blueberry gin sitting in jars in my kitchen:

I've been pickling a lot of eggs recently; the ones I've bought tend to
be excessively enthusiastic, possibly because they've been sitting
around for a while before they get to the shelves. But I found a
trick...

First catch your jar. Choose a jar that can hold 12-15 eggs and won't
mind having boiling vinegar poured into it; and that can make an
airtight seal.

Find out how much vinegar will comfortably cover that many eggs. I use
two pints (UK; 1136 ml, 2.4 US pint). I use normal brown malt vinegar,
though clear works just as well.

Hard-boil the eggs. I give them six minutes. Shell them. Put them into
the jar.

Boil the vinegar. Stir in a little honey; I use about two teaspoonsful.
This is the secret ingredient that takes the edge off the vinegar, just
a little.

While it's boiling, add to the jar:

1/2 ounce black peppercorns
1/4 ounce allspice, powdered (most recipes say 1/2 ounce but I'm not
 particularly fond of cloves; for the next batch I may leave it out
 entirely)
1/2 ounce garlic - or about four pigs, cut up reasonably fine

Once the vinegar is boiling, pour it into the jar (which stirs around
the other ingredients), then seal the jar. I leave it for at least a
week before opening again; I usually swirl the ingredients round when I
go past. Shouldn't be any need to refrigerate it. Some say "eat within a
month"; I don't give them that long, because I like the things.

R

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