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Kate

Sweet Polish Pickles

Delicious Polish style pickles
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Course: Preserves
Cuisine: Polish
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 4 litres Water
  • 1 litre White Vinegar (10%) You can buy this from Polish Greengrocers
  • 4 cups Sugar
  • 4 tbsp Salt
  • 1 tbsp Honey
  • 1 teaspoon Chilli flakes
  • 1 teaspoon Mustard seeds Add to bottom of jars

Method
 

  1. Remember to prepare the jars before using them. Wash jars and lids in hot soapy water, rinse and dry them.
  2. Prepare the vegetables: Wash and slice cucumbers to the required thickness, which can depend on the size of the jars. Thick slices, spears or whole mini cucumbers work well
    You can use any other vegetable such as mushrooms, onions or peppers. Set to one side.
  3. Prepare vinegar pickle: Place all the pickle ingredients in the pot, stir till sugar and salt dissolves and bring to the boil.
  4. Put the mustard seeds into jars and pack with the chopped vegetables. You can add any other flavourings such as dill at this point if you wish
  5. Take a big pot, cover the bottom with a cloth.
  6. Place the jars on the cloth, remember that they cannot touch one another.
  7. Pour the water to cover no more than 3/4 of the jar. Keep the jars in the boiling water bath for 10 minutes.
  8. Take them out, place them on a tray upside down and let them cool slowly. You can cover the jars with a blanket.

Notes

This is a very versatile recipe that can be used to preserve lots of different vegetables from the garden. 
Cucumbers, red cabbage, beetroot, peppers, chillis, carrots, mushrooms and onions or a mix all work fantastically.
If using standard UK White Vinegar, which is 5% Acetic Acid you will need 2L of Vinegar to 3L of Water to get the same strength - the table below shows the proportions for different quantities
Final solution volume 5% vinegar (L) Water (L)
1 L 0.4 0.6
2 L 0.8 1.2
3 L 1.2 1.8
4 L 1.6 2.4
5 L 2.0 3.0
10 L 4.0 6.0
Pickles in jars