PICKLES

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Pilar and Dalia's face sums up the entire country's opinion of Pepinos Escabeches.

Lips sucked in so tight their teeth are pushed back. Eyes squinched almost shut but the eyebrows are making multiple angles -- which until I saw it thought impossible.

Mexicans do not like pickles. You can see it by picking up a bottle of substandard Maid-Rite gherkins and betting shocked at the price tag.

So I learned how to make my own NON VINEGAR style Bubbies Pickles. And with a minor amount of modification morph them into sweet dills, whole, sliced or stackers.

Some of the makings you have to buy at home. And the recipe calls for fresh grape leaves which are available in Mexico south of Ensenada and near Aguascalientes. Scrounge a bag full north of the border. They must be fresh green off the vine.

The pickles are SALT CURED so if you're on a low sodium diet this ain't the snack for you. Then when you get ready to make them, you need to scrounge the "right size" cucumbers -- not the easiest thing to do in Mexico. The pickles need to be "cured" for ten days at room temperature then refrigerated. Only a real pickle nut would jump through hoops like this.

Do they taste "exactly" like expensive Bubbies Pickles?

The easy part is a small bag of spices can make a hundred pickles and Mexico has good rock salt.

But rather than waste space, if there is enough interest, I'll post the recipes...

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Best Home Made Pickles On Planet Earth
• Small cucumbers are hard to find in Mexico. Don’t fret, use a bigger jar. I tip a restaurant a few bucks to save their Wilsey gallon mayonnaise jars for me.
• Finding fresh (supple) grape leaves is also a challenge. Chances are someone in your area grows grapes. I get a shopping bag’s worth. You’ll need the leaves for their Tannic Acid.

Spices From The USA
I always buy “too much” but then run out.

1. Fennel seed. A cup’s worth
2. Black mustard seed ½ cup’s worth
3. Yellow mustard seed ½ cup’s worth
4. Black peppercorns. Telicherry is more flavorful 1 cup
5. Red pepperflakes are best gotten in Mexico ½ cup
6. Fresh garlic cloves again best gotten in Mexico 1 cup for a Wilsey jar.
7. DILL. Smell the seeds and reject them if they do not reek of dill aroma. 1 cup . As much as I like dill weed it does not flavor like the seed.
8. Rock salt. Unrefined rock salt is usually rather gray colored and has more minerals and more flavor than pure USA rock salt.

Wash the Wilsey jar thoroughly and add a teaspoon of chlorine bleach during the rinse.
Cucumbers must be fresh and rock hard to the touch. Most of the time I settle for the smallest of large pepinos then quarter them into spears. If they are too long for you or the jar cut the length to size.
• Place a layer of grape leaves on the bottom of the jar. Ten to twelve large leaves will do it.
• Add one teaspoon of each ingredient except salt and red pepper flakes. Mustard seeds equal one half teaspoon yellow and one half teaspoon black.
• Garlic cloves, fresh. Mince one quarter cup of cloves and add it.
• Red pepper. One quarter-teaspoon.
• Salt. One full cup.

Start placing the cucumber spears which is easier than it sounds. Do whatever it takes to pack them in. Leave one inch on top for more grape leaves. Still have room after placing grape leaves? Fill with bits of cucumber. Pack that jar.
Fill the jar with purified water but not to the last drop.
Screw the lid on tight. Then shake the jar, turn it upside down, really mix the insides.
With tropical environment, it’s going to take a week before the pickles start fermenting. So unless I am shaking the jar I’ll leave it loose so fermentation gas escapes. I like to shake the jar every third day.
Around the ninth day, sample one of the chips on the top. Mmmmm?
What the grape leaves do is render the cured pickles crisp so they snap. Otherwise the center of the cucumber turns sorta mushy.

Want sweet dills? Use unflavored Karo syrup or better yet Madrileña syrup and separate spears to be sweetened. Three or four tablespoons per sixteen ounce jar will cure the pickles in three or four additional days unrefrigerated.
You will need to adjust the amount of ingredients to suit your taste for future batches. I add extra red chili and even mash the garlic for an intense experience. Black mustard is spicy so keep that in mind.

[Talleyho69]

This is real, not BS.

Today was one of those days, plumber came to replace the bathroom fixtures on the second floor, decide his approach for the new kitchen and fix the leak under the remaining sink. The electrician was here too, doing the same planning for the kitchen and installing the wiring up high for the patio ceiling fan on the third floor.

Jesus the plumber took a call and was pacing. He stopped, put his phone on mute and pointed at the pickle jar from Sam's mentioned above. "What are those?" He got off the phone. My sweetie explained them to him and gave him a small bowl with 4 of them in it. He LOVED them! Wanted to know the details-where to buy them, how to make them, OMG really? On a torta? We'll give him a jar when the kitchen plumbing is done, he gives us the best banana chips anywhere so it's a great trade. How tastes vary, and the timing, hard to believe.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

When I served EGGO squares to the girls they grimaced.

This tastes terrible! Pop tarts went to the iguanas.

Dalia grew up on my fresh ground coffee. Cafe con leche.

One day in a greasy spoon in downtown Lazaro she got served No Es Cafe. One sip and she gagged and put the glass on the table and glowered at the waitress.

"Something wrong honey?"

"The cafe con leche is awful. What is it?"

"Nescafe and condensed milk"

Pickles in vinegar to me are a newfangled obstruction of reality. They do it because it is far cheaper than doing it with salt and like a Twinkie you can set it in the sun for 6 months and not an animal or insect will touch it. Ewwwwww.

Each to their own.

Tomorrow comes the recipe for the Real McCoy...

[Linda_Z]

Please do. I miss my non-vinegar dills. Have to eat those dreadful goy-ish vinegar based things.

[Talleyho69]

My dill seeds won't sprout, but the giant jar of pickles from Sam's Club has been open since mid-June, has about half left in it, doesn't need to be refrigerated, was inexpensive and are good enough to fill our needs. Another option.