The Relish Tray

I see that charcuterie and cheese boards are all the rage this season, and I am reminded of the old Southern tradition of serving a "relish tray" as part of a special occasion meal. Along with deviled eggs, a glass plate with a variety of colorful, crunchy homemade pickles was a regular feature of family holiday dinners when I was growing up.

You can always purchase pickles at the grocery store, but making your own is pretty simple. You can make homemade pickles now, and keep them in the refrigerator until Christmas or New Year's Eve. If you make a batch today, they will even be ready in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

Always select the prettiest, most nearly perfect produce for making pickles. Carefully wash and trim the vegetables and cut them into bite size pieces. Good choices include cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, celery, asparagus, turnips, squash (summer and winter), beets, parsnips, bell peppers and tomatoes. You can also make pickles out of berries and other fruits, although the procedure is a little different than the one for vegetables.

Wash and rinse a canning jar and place it in a warm oven to stay hot. Combine a cup of water and a cup of white vinegar with a tablespoon of salt in a small saucepan. Set the pan over medium heat, adding your choice of whole spices. Use any combination of mustard seeds, coriander, cloves, cinnamon stick, allspice berries, bay leaves and peppercorns. You need a teaspoon of spices for each pint of pickling liquid. You can also add garlic, hot peppers, and/or dill seeds or a dill head to a jar of pickles. Add them with the vegetables, rather than steeping them in the pickling liquid.

Bring the liquid to a simmer and allow it to bubble gently for 10 minutes while you pack the vegetables and flavorings into the hot jar. Pour the hot liquid over the contents of the jar. Allow it to sit for a moment to release air bubbles, or use a bamboo skewer to free air bubbles from the sides of the jar. Apply and lid and allow the jar to cool to room temperature. Place the jar in the refrigerator and wait a week before enjoying the pickles.

To pickle fruits or tomatoes, allow the pickling liquid to cool before pouring it over the contents of a room temperature jar. This works with whole berries, peeled and seeded tomato quarters, cherries, and stone fruits. Add a teaspoon of sugar to the pickling liquid for added sweetness, if you prefer.

Use an assortment of homemade pickles to create a colorful, traditional relish tray for your holiday table.

How To Pickle Anything

Warm summer weather and sufficient rain have conspired to make the garden productive. This is a great opportunity to turn some of your vegetables into pickles. While most of us think of homemade pickles as a canning project, you need not make a large batch nor can them. You can make great pickles that will keep in your refrigerator until the end of summer. Here are some tips for refrigerator pickles.

Most vegetables will benefit from blanching before pickling. These include beans, corn, cauliflower, carrots, and asparagus. Green tomatoes, peppers, okra and cucumbers need not be blanched. Cut or break vegetables into uniform pieces so they will blanch evenly. Leave baby cucumbers, okra pods, tiny peppers and cherry tomatoes whole. One to three minutes, depending upon the size of the pieces and their density, is sufficient blanching time. As soon as the time is up, drain the vegetables in a colander and plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking. You may need to experiment with blanching time. You want the vegetables to retain some crunch. Remember that the pickling process will further tenderize them.

Seasoning pickles is a matter of taste and creativity. I suggest adding whole spices and/or fresh herbs to the jar before adding the vegetables. Some of the best flavorings to use are garlic, bay leaves, hot peppers, peppercorns, mustard seeds, allspice, coriander, celery seeds, clove, dill and ginger. Don't overdo it. You don't want to mask the flavor of the vegetables. Turmeric can be added to any pickle if you want the bright yellow color it gives.

Make a "universal" pickling liquid by combining equal parts of vinegar and water and adding one teaspoon of salt per quart of liquid. You can use more salt if you like salty pickles, but do not alter the vinegar-water mix, as it is crucial for preservation. Use a vinegar of 5% acidity. Clear vinegars will show off the colors of the pickles. However, many traditional Appalachian cooks use apple cider vinegar. The choice is up to you, so long as the acidity is at the proper level.

The procedure for any refrigerator pickle is as follows:

Wash a jar and lid in hot, soapy water. Rinse in hot water and stand upside down on a towel until you are ready to fill the jar.

Place your seasonings in the jar. One bay leaf, one clove of garlic and three peppercorns is a basic mix.

Next, pack the prepared, blanched vegetables into the jar. Pack them in firmly, but not so tight that their shape is distorted.

Bring the pickling liquid to a boil, and pour it carefully over the vegetables in the jar.

Allow the pickles to cool to room temperature, apply the lid, and place the jar in the refrigerator. Wait a week before enjoying the pickles, to allow the flavor to develop.

Pictured are some pickled green cherry tomatoes that I recently made when the wind broke some branches off my plant. I pierced each one with an ice pick at the stem scar before dropping them into the jar. Seasonings are coriander seed, white pepper, and celery seed. If I had added a couple of fresh, washed grape leaves, they would be called "Tennessee Olives." Grape leaves add a bitter element to the flavor, but not too much. The resulting tomatoes taste remarkably similar to green olives.

If you want to make canned pickles that will keep at room temperature, a good place to start is the National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia.

Food Gifts for the Holidays

'Tis the season once again. During the holidays, my thoughts typically turn to things I can make in the kitchen to share with friends and family. Here are some ideas that go beyond the usual cookies and other baked goods. Make no mistake, we love cookies and other sweets. These suggestions are intended to broaden the scope of your food-themed gift giving.

Jams, Jellies, Conserves and Preserves
Almost as popular as baked goods, canned fruit spreads and preserves make wonderful gifts. Missed the chance for perfect berries at the farmer's market last summer? No worries. Make pomegranate jelly with bottled juice, sugar and powdered fruit pectin. Use in-season citrus fruit to prepare citrus curd, then process it in small jars for giving. You can find recipes for many such items with a quick Google search.

Pickles
Another category of preserved foods that we don't often consider, pickles can be made from just about any vegetable that will not become mushy due to the heat of processing. If you did not make pickles last summer, consider using vegetables that are in season now, such as winter squash, carrots, and beets. If you can a batch in the next week or two, they will be ready to eat by New Year's Eve.

Dry Products
One of my favorite gifts to give when I was just learning to cook was a bean soup mix. Go to the nearest store with a bulk section and purchase small amounts of 2 or 3 legumes and one grain, such as barley or wild rice. Also buy some dehydrated onions and garlic, bay leaves, and sun-dried tomatoes. You can get creative with additional flavorings. Dried thyme, oregano, marjoram or basil, along with dehydrated vegetables such as carrots, can also be included. Use your imagination. Purchase decorative jars for your gifts, or use canning jars from the grocery store. Combine these ingredients in whatever amounts suit you, and then fill small jars with the mixture. Tip: Don't overdo it on the grain, or the soup may become too thick. A tablespoon of dry wild rice is plenty for a half pint of soup mix. Because the components are dehydrated, a half-pint of the soup mix will make 4 to 6 servings. Be sure to include the instructions: Soak the mixture in the refrigerator overnight in enough water to cover by one inch. The next day bring slowly to a boil, adjust the heat and simmer about an hour and a half, or until the largest beans are tender. Serve with crusty bread for a warming supper.

If you grow and dry your own herbs, make teas or seasoning mixes for gifting. Herbal product recipes abound.

Tinctures
Make homemade vanilla extract with purchased vanilla beans, vodka, and decorative bottles. You can find recipes for this and other tinctures online. Kick up the flavor with Tennessee whiskey or another liquor instead of vodka. Whatever you select, be sure it is 90 proof or above, for maximum preservative effect.

And one more idea...
Visit your favorite food purveyors. Look for products you'd love to try, but haven't yet. Buy two of everything. Make a gift basket for a special friend with one of each of the products. Keep the other as a holiday gift to yourself.

Preserving the Bounty

Something about the harvest season and the changing leaves compels us to put food up for the coming cold weather. I always find it helpful to have some "universal" recipes available that can be applied to whatever I happen to find in the market or have on hand.

This season, we have pickled just about everything pickle-able and have not been disappointed in any of the pickles we have sampled so far. Refrigerator pickles keep for at least a month or two, and can be made out of any vegetable or fruit that is firm-fleshed enough to withstand the treatment. Pickling solutions are usually half water and half vinegar. Use a commercial vinegar that has been adjusted to 5% acidity. Artisanal vinegars can be used for refrigerator pickles, but bear in mind that a lower acid content may give different results and may reduce the keeping time.

To the basic mixture you can add varying amounts of salt (a basic ratio is one teaspoon of salt per quart of liquid) and sugar. Sugar can equal the amount of vinegar if you desire a syrupy sweet pickle. All manner of spices may be added. I recommend using only whole spices as ground ones will make the liquid cloudy. Ginger, hot peppers, bay leaves, and garlic cloves may also be used to flavor the pickling liquid. As a general rule, make a volume of pickling liquid equal to the volume of the jar. That is, for a pint of pickles, make two cups of liquid, to insure that you have enough to cover the vegetables. You will have some liquid leftover that can be used to make salad dressing, for a smaller batch of pickles, etc.

The basic procedure for refrigerator pickles is simple. Wash a jar in hot, soapy water, and keep it hot in a warm oven while you prepare the vegetables. Select only perfect vegetables for pickling. Cut them into uniform pieces. Bring the pickling juice ingredients to a boil over medium heat, add the vegetables, remove from the heat, and allow to cool a few minutes. Remove the vegetables from the liquid and pack them into the prepared jar. Pour the hot pickling liquid over the vegetables. Apply a lid and set the jar aside to cool to room temperature before storing in the refrigerator.

A great technique for a small amount of fruit is to make a mostardo. This is a mustard sauce that can be varied infinitely to suit your taste. Let's say you picked a handful of wild berries or plums or persimmons while on a walk in the woods. Wash and chop the fruit, removing any large seeds or other inedible debris, but leaving skins on. Combine the chopped fruit with an equal amount of sugar in a small saucepan. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to a boil and cook until it is slightly thickened. The time required for this will vary with the type of fruit. When the fruit and sugar mixture has a nice consistency, remove it from the heat. Add mustard to taste. For example, you might use a dry mustard, such as Colman's, mixed with a little water or a coarse-grained mustard such as Grey Poupon or your favorite mustard or a combination. You could dress it up with whole yellow or black mustard seeds. Store the mostardo in the refrigerator and use it to season pork or poultry, or as a sandwich spread.

Fall is the best time of year to look for foraged mushrooms at the farmer's markets. Unless you have appropriate training and experience, do not forage your own mushrooms. Purchase from the experts, instead. Look for yellow chanterelles, a special delicacy, along with oyster mushrooms, hen-of-the-woods, chicken-of-the-woods, and several others. Wild mushrooms make a great addition to stir fries and casseroles. Do not be tempted to eat them raw, as some can cause indigestion unless cooked.

The best way to preserve most wild mushrooms is to dehydrate them. However, some cannot be preserved by any practical method and should always be cooked fresh. Your best bet is to talk to the forager regarding the best uses and preparation methods for the mushrooms he or she is selling.

Nuts are in season in fall, also, and most people will have to rely on the market for their supply, as nut trees are typically enormous and require several years to bear a crop. If you are into indigenous foods, you can purchase black walnuts, hickory nuts, and wild pecans online. The links given are examples. Other sources are out there, also. Nuts can be frozen for about six months without losing quality. Store them at room temperature for about a month.

More Ways to Save Summer Bounty

Last week I shared a recipe for pickled haricots verts, those thin green beans that are hard to preserve by regular freezing or canning. This week, I will offer some more ideas for saving summer's bright, fresh flavors for later use.

The first tool in your "saving summer" arsenal should be a good grasp of how to make "quick" pickles. Just about any fresh vegetable can be pickled this way, and the finished pickles will keep in the refrigerator for at least a month unopened. You should not use quick pickle recipes as a substitute for canned pickles. Canning recipes often have a stronger pickling brine, and the pickles require processing to give them shelf life. Processing times can vary depending upon the type of vegetable and amount of sugar in the recipe. If you want canned pickles, follow published recipes to the letter. Experimentation is not a great idea. In fact, it can be deadly if you make a serious mistake. Stick with published recipes, or keep pickles in the refrigerator.

Universal Pickling Solution

Having a recipe on hand that can be used to pickle any type of vegetable allows you to take advantage of seasonal abundance, or a special purchase from the farmer's market. Here is the recipe I always start with:

1 cup distilled white vinegar
1 cup distilled water
1 tablespoon pickling salt

If you want a sweet pickle, add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the mixture.

You can also add various spices and flavorings: mustard seed, celery seed, allspice, coriander seed, bay leaves, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, ginger, lemon peel, etc. Choose whatever seems to go well with the vegetable. Beets go well with cinnamon and cloves, beans seem to like dill, and mustard seed goes with cucumbers and just about everything else.

You can reduce the amount of salt or increase the amount of sugar, but it is important to keep the ratio of vinegar and water at 1:1. The acidity of the vinegar is doing the heavy lifting of preserving the pickles. You can substitute other vinegar, such as apple cider, wine or malt, but make sure the label says the vinegar contains at least 5 percent acidity. Do not use raw or homemade vinegars.

Using brown sugar will produce a "bread and butter" pickle flavor.

I use distilled water because our tap water contains a lot of minerals. These will tend to darken the color of the pickled vegetables, but are otherwise harmless. I like my pickles to retain the bright colors of the vegetables.

To make pickles, fill a clean pint jar with vegetables, trimmed to whatever size and shape you prefer. Combine the pickling solution ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar, if used. Reduce the heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes, then pour the hot liquid over the vegetables in the jar. Flavorings can be added to the jar with the vegetables, or cooked with the pickling liquid. The latter procedure will tend to intensify the flavor, while the former will be milder and mellower.

Some vegetables will benefit from blanching, prior to placing them in the jar. Blanching not only tenderizes crisp vegetables (celery root, carrots) but also helps to preserve their bright colors (green beans, snap peas, asparagus). To blanch, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Drop in the prepped vegetables. When the water returns to a boil, set a timer. Blanching time is 1 to 3 minutes, depending upon how dense the vegetable is. Test a piece with the edge of a metal spoon, beginning after 1 minute. If it cuts with just a little resistance, it is done. Drain the vegetables in a colander and immediately plunge them into ice water. Allow to sit for 1 minute, then drain thoroughly again and place in the jar.

When the jar is cool, cover with a lid and place in the refrigerator. Allow at least a week for the flavor to develop. After opening, use the pickles within two weeks.

Saving Summer

If you have a vegetable garden, chances are you are experiencing an over-abundance of one or more of your crops. Vegetable varieties can be amazingly productive, and a favorable season can spur any of them to higher levels.

Take the case of our French filet beans this year. Also called "haricots verts," these are green beans bred to be picked when they are about 3/16 of an inch in diameter, and eaten with minimal preparation. If you try to substitute immature snap beans, like Blue Lake or Kentucky Wonder, you will be disappointed in the lack of flavor and mushy texture. On the other hand, if you try to cook full size green beans as recommended for filet beans (as I recently experienced in an otherwise excellent restaurant) they will be so tough as to be inedible. If you find filet beans in the market, they are guaranteed to be expensive, because demand is small compared to other types of beans, and the yield, in terms of pounds-per-unit-effort for the grower, is low.

In the backyard garden, however, a row of filet beans can easily produce more beans than you will care to eat fresh. We have already harvested about five pounds of them, and I have begun to run out of recipes, not to mention simply tiring of them. I know from previous experience they do not freeze well. The tender texture does not lend itself to freezing. My efforts at preserving them this way resulted in a mushy, olive-colored product with very little remaining flavor. I threw them into the compost bin.

When I checked with the National Center for Home Food Preservation, I found a lot of great ideas for what to do with summer produce, but, alas, nothing for haricots verts. If you are new to home canning, this web site has a wealth of essential information and dozens of laboratory tested recipes. I have found some of the recipes lifted verbatim and copied without attribution on other web sites. Why not go directly to the experts?

Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered a recipe for making pickles out of filet beans on a British food site. It called for a few exotic ingredients that would have entailed a trip out to West Knoxville to obtain, so I tweaked the recipe a bit.

Before I get to the actual recipe, however, I will offer a tip for saving money on summer canning projects. Those herbs and spices called for in just about every recipe for pickles can get expensive. Instead of getting the little bottles from the grocery store, look for bulk spices at Three Rivers Market or your favorite specialty retailer. I was able to buy four times the amount of mustard seed, for example, for half the price of the McCormick brand in the little jar, a savings of about 85 percent.

Pickled Haricots Verts

½ pound haricots verts

⅓ cup Champagne vinegar

⅓ cup water

2  lemons

1  tablespoon whole black peppercorns

1  teaspoon herbes de Provence

½ teaspoon sea salt

1  teaspoon sugar

1  teaspoon capers, drained

½ teaspoon chili flakes

½ teaspoon mustard seed

Wash a pint jar in hot, soapy water. Rinse well, and place the jar in a 180F oven while you prepare the beans and pickling liquid. Rinse and drain the beans. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil. Drop in the beans and blanch them 3 minutes. Drain the beans into a colander, rinse under cold water and plunge the colander into a bowl of ice water. They should be crisp and bright green. Arrange the beans on a tray so that all are oriented in the same direction. Reserve.

Remove the zest from the lemons and juice them, reserving the zest and juice separately. You should have about ⅓ cup juice. Strain out any seeds.

In a small nonreactive saucepan, bring the vinegar, water, lemon zest, peppercorns, herbes de Provence, salt, and sugar to a boil. Decrease the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. 

Pack the beans upright into the jar, taking care not to break them. This is easier if you start with the jar on its side, and if you use a wide mouth jar. Sprinkle the chili flakes, mustard seed, and capers over the beans. Pour the hot vinegar mixture over the beans, top with the lemon juice, and put a lid on the jar. Allow the jar to cool to room temperature, then place it in the refrigerator. Let the beans rest at least one week before using. They will keep for two months if unopened and refrigerated. After opening, use the beans within two weeks.