Thursday, August 2, 2012

Pickles & Cheese

You can pickle just about anything. Yes, we all have an idea of what "a pickle" is... but for each of us it could be something different. It usually conjures up some version of a pickled cucumber- for me, its a garlicy dill pickled cucumber. So far this summer, I have pickled black radishes(on 7/8/12) and dill pickles (today). I jarred 9 pints of pickled black radishes and 4 quarts and 4 pints of dill pickles. I adapted a pickled beet recipe with black radish inspired spices to create the recipe for those bad boys. They came out well, but in the future, I would recommend peeling the skins off. I left them on, because I like the skins when they are cooked, but it turns out that the skins get chewy when pickled. Edible, but not ideal. I'll have to wait at least 2 weeks to try my jarred dill pickles, but I always make sure to make extra for refrigerator pickles to tide me over.
Pickling is essentially fermenting foods in a certain way- the way that you like, and doesn't kill you. In that way, it is very similar to cheese. I would never be able to keep all these cucumbers for more than a month or so without pickling, just like there's no way to keep milk around without cheese. So far I have made Mozzarella, Ziegerkase, Farmhouse Cheddar, Whey Ricotta, Milk Yogurt and Soy Yogurt. However, I haven't tried all of these yet! Cheese is about patience. Aging makes one cheese one way and another another, so we'll have to wait and see if my cheddar and ziegerkase are successful! Mozzarella is quickly becoming a household norm, and the soy yogurt is vastly more popular and easier than the milk yogurt.

Read more about pickling here!

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