Pickled onions
9 09 2007
To finish a day of onions, I’ve just pickled five jars of the smaller ones. It might not look like much, but that’s an hour-and-a-half’s onion peeling and trimming there plus another 20 minutes cleaning, bottling and pickling. The onion in these jars amounted to about a third of a bucket - I still have a bucket and half to go. That’s 18 litres of onions in all.
As for the pickle, it’s a very simple one. To every pint of pickling vinegar add one teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of whole white peppercorns, one teaspoon of whole allspice berries and two mace blades. Pack the onions into hot, sterilised jars and then fill with boiling pickle, sealing immediately with hot, sterilised lids.
And if you think all we did today was lift, sort and pickle onions, then you’d be wrong. We also managed to do all the animal chores, muck out Delilah and her piglets, get the trailer moved and ready for the abattoir run on Tuesday, mow the rough grass along and behind the bunds with the scythe, mow the grass in the coppice and on the tracks with the petrol mower, weed and mulch around two of the oak saplings, weed a section of hedge, and have fun with the boys.
Not a bad day!
I admire your staying power, did you cry?
Spend that long working with your eyes full of sulphuric acid (onions give off ethyl sulfine which reacts with moisture in your eyes to form dilute sulphuric acid) and acetic acid (from boiling vinegar) and you, too, will have tears flooding down your cheeks.
And yes, I had the windows wide open for maximum ventilation.
I’ve bought some swimming goggles for when I do mine. I hope it works…!
Hello. It is my first time here to visit your blog. I will have to come back again to look through your many catagories. That picture of your little one holding the bucket was so adorable. Have a great day!
Salina
I have never eaten pickled onions before (but I’m not much in the kitchen!). How do you eat or prepare them?
Pick one out of the jar with a fork, and then munch away. They taste excellent with home-made bread, strong cheese and a glass of cider. Or eat them with fish and chips. Or with cold roast meats. Or slice them and layer them on a sandwich with cold meat and cheese.