Not just tech

So, not just tech, eh? Nope. I've been told my family's history with pickled onions. As in most of our family going back at least four generations has made their own pickled onions. To be fair, as a child, I remember eating pickled onions made by both my Mum and favourite (youngest!) aunt.

And so, with my Mum living with us for a bit whilst she's between houses, i've been tutored in the ancient (practically) art of the pickled onion.

After a false start, where I thought that it would be a good idea to buy vinegar which is pre-spiced, I'm now back on track.

A note on the pre-spiced vinegar: It's perfectly functional; it works, the onions pickle and there's nothing exactly wrong as such. It's just that at this point, you're using someone elses idea of what's nice in a pickled onion. The vinegar I picked (but will not name) was just overwhelmingly clove-y. So much clove taste, and it was overwhelming everything else.

So. My recommendation (on top of the family recipe as it stands) is to buy bog-standard malt vinegar. Sarsons will sell you a five litre container full of the stuff for not much money. This is what I'd (now) recommend you start with.

The second recommendation is that pickling spice can be made yourself, but honestly it's possibly not worth the effort, unless you really struggle to find a pickling spice that you like. The family recipe just calls for "pickling spice". I'm sure that four generations ago, they'd have made their own pickling spice blend. But these days, there's so many pickling spices available to buy that there's bound to be one you like. Mum (and now, I) use the Buy Wholefoods Online (BWFO) pickling spice mix.

Just as important as the edible parts of this recipe, you'll need some jars to pickle in. We've always used kilner jars with the screw top lids. They work, they're not expensive. Get at least two 1 litre jars, as you'll need to be eating the contents of one whilst the other is standing doing the actual time-based pickling thing.

And speaking of edible components. The onions. Oh yes. The important part; no less than 50% of the pickled onion. We use miniature shallots. The end. Whatever you use, you'll need miniature ones; you don't want to have to chop the onions up to fit into the jars. The most reliable supplier of miniature shallots that I've found is actually our local Waitrose; no other supermarket near us sells them in miniature, which is somewhat upsetting.

Common consensus (i.e. the previous generations) was that the recipe is in imperial units. However, I was born in the early 70's and so I'm somewhat confused by measurements, having been taught both (badly, confusingly, etc.) so I'll give the largely metric measurements I've found that work.

So, for a litre jar, you'll need approximately 750ml of vinegar for an onion fill of 66%. This is approximate; you may have vinegar left over, but that's not a bad thing if you consider the alternative. For each litre of vinegar, so the tradition goes (ahem), use one teaspoon of pickling spice.

You'll already have noticed that these measurements don't align nicely. 750ml per jar and 1 teaspoon per litre? Ok, so remember I said to get two jars? Make two jars. 1.5 litres of vinegar, and therefore 3 teaspoons of spice.

So. Now you're ready to start. Put the vinegar into a saucepan, and add the pickling spice. Start to boil the vinegar. Yes, this gets as fragrant as you think it will. As long as you don't breathe in a lungful of the evaporant, you'll live. Trust me, do not smell the contents of the saucepan as it starts to get hot (or even boil!); you just do not need to do this. It's not that it smells bad - it really doesn't - it's just that your lungs do not need evaporated accetic acid dumped into them in concentration. I'd suggest keeping the lid on the pot throughtout the process.

When the vinegar starts a rolling boil, turn off the heat and put the lid back on. This must now go completely cold. Any warmth left in the vinegar will start to cook the onions when they are put in it, and this will cause the onions to soften. You want the crispy texture of the onions to remain for a good pickled onion. Trust me.

So, with the vinegar cold (an overnight stand on the hob is good for this), start to top, tail and peel your miniature shallots, to fill the jars. It's actually surprising how many shallots you'll need to fill the jars, as quite a lof of volume is removed with the waste from the onions. Obviously, you're going to be eating these raw, so make sure that all blemishes and that really thin skin you sometimes get on the onions is removed; that's just chewy and nasty. When the jars are (66%) filled, use the vinegar from the pan to fill out the jars. Put the used pickling spice from the bottom of the saucepan into the jars too, it's all good.

The family recipe then says that you seal the jars, and store in the pantry until done. 'Done' here is defined as "until the bells have rung over them". There's been some discussion about this level of imprecision in the recipe, but the consensus is that pickling used to be done on a sunday afternoon, and so the bells wouldn't be rung for a week. So, leave them a week to pickle, in a cool, dark cupboard (modern day pantry).

My Aunt has a modification to the recipe which I'm quite anxious to try; add chillies. A handful of birds-eye chillies should make the resulting onions a little more exciting. Obviously, this is a to-taste thing, and you'd add the chillies to the spice mix when boiling the vinegar. But as this is an optional step (and untested by me at the moment) I have no recommendation on their practical use (yet). I have added cayenne pepper, but I don't think I added enough as I couldn't detect it in the final pickled onion. I'll update with more news when I've bottomed out the cayenne pepper amounts to use.

Happy pickling!