Icebox Pickles

eat. I planted a Japanese cucumber this summer for the first time, and it’s been producing like crazy. What to do with all those cukes?


Why, pickles, of course!

I didn’t want to mess with sterilizing jars, so I decided to go with icebox pickles, which must be kept refrigerated after being made. (Note that the botulism toxin can’t tolerate high acid, salty or cold conditions.) There are a jillion recipes for icebox pickles on line, so I sort of combined a few to come up with my own (based partly on what I had on hand in my cupboard and garden). I decided on bread-and-butter style pickles, i.e., a combination of sweet and dill. A veritable Goldie Locks, am I.

The hardest part was finding enough jars. I’d had about a dozen canning jars until last year, when in a fit of “cleaning” had decided to give them away, thinking “I’ll never can anything.” Famous last words. But between some salsa jars in the recycling, and finding other almost-empty jars in the fridge, I was able to come up with enough to do the job. (Do wash the jars well in hot, soapy water before starting.)

I cut most of my cukes into spears,


but did one jar’s worth as disks, for use in sandwiches. After they’re cut, jam as many pieces as you can into each jar:


The next step is to heat your vinegar with your flavorings. Some of the recipes called for apple cider vinegar, but since I had about a gallon of plain old white vinegar, I decided to go with that.

To find out how much vinegar I needed, I poured straight vinegar into my pickle-filled jars, about three-quarter ways full. Then I poured the vinegar from the jars into a saucepan:


Next I added my ingredients: mustard seed,


crushed red chili peppers,


chopped garlic (I used the kind that you buy in a jar), black pepper corns, white sugar, and (pictured) fresh tarragon, and salt:


Bring the seasoned vinegar to a boil,


then immediately turn it off, let it cool so it won’t break the jars when you add it, and then pour it into each jar:


Top the jars with enough water to cover the cucumbers, and cap them:


Keep them in the fridge, and they will be ready to eat in about four days. But they improve with age: After about a week they were better; and after two, even better than that. Here are some of the discs on a sandwich I made:


As for quantities of ingredients, I’d say (and I’m guessing here, because I didn’t measure) this is about right for 1 cup of vinegar, which will make about one jar:

Icebox Pickle Ingredients

1 cup vinegar
1 t mustard seed
1 t black pepper corns
1 t chopped garlic
½ t crushed red chili peppers (the kind they give you at pizza parlors)
1 sprig tarragon
2 t salt
1 T sugar

Note that, since these are icebox pickles—and not vacuum packed—you can taste a pickle after about 4 days, and then add more seasonings as desired. I did this, and ended up adding more salt and sugar to mine.

And, of course, you could pickle all sorts of things other than cucumbers: string beans, okra, radishes, onions, cauliflower...

Calabacitas

eat. Back in the 1980s when I lived with a gaggle of ex-college buddies, we used to take turns cooking dinner. One of Tom’s favorite dishes to prepare was called calabacitas, which means little squash (calabaza) in Spanish. It’s the perfect student fare: filling, and made with cheap ingredients (when in season): zucchini, corn, onion, and pork shoulder.

it’s perfect served up on a soft corn tortilla with grated cheese

I had a couple large zucchini that my friend Julie had given me,

you can see from the size of the ears of corn that these
were more calabazones, than calabacitas

so I decided to make a pot of Tom’s calabacitas for dinner last night. (No, Robin couldn’t eat it, alas. But I gotta eat too, right? She had TFS (i.e., that [expletive deleted] soup), and we ate our respective meals while watching Dexter do his dastardly deeds on the bad guys. We had decided not to turn on the Giants, after the last two miserable weeks of games, and learned only this morning that they actually won. But then they lost again today.)

Back to the calabacitas: Take some pork (any cut will work, but shoulder works great, as it’s inexpensive, and has enough fat to add good flavor),


remove the big pieces of fat, and cut the fat into tiny pieces and the lean into 1” cubes:


The first thing I do is render the fat, by frying it over medium heat in a heavy skillet, to release the fat from the tissue:


It takes a few minutes, and when you’re done you have fat for later use (keep it in the fridge),


as well as some crunchy bits (crackling), which you can either salt and munch on as a snack with your cocktail while you prepare the calabacitas, or you can top your tacos with them. (I did both.)

the cracklings

While the fat is rendering, cut the corn kernels off the cobs (or you can use canned, if it’s not corn season),


and cut your zucchini into bite-size pieces.

my mise en place

Once your fat is rendered and drained off, brown the pork in the same skillet, and then add your spices: chili powder, garlic, cumin, S&P, and whatever else you want (I didn’t have any onions on hand—a normal ingredient in the dish—so made due with onion powder):


Here’s the meat with the spices added:


Now add enough water to cover the meat, and simmer it for at least an hour.


Add more water if it cooks away. When the meat starts to get tender,


add the zucchini,


and the corn (and chopped onions, which I didn’t have):


Stir the veg into the meat, and continue cooking until they are done (about 10-15 minutes):


As I noted above, the calabacitas are best served with warm tortillas and grated cheese. You could also top them with sour cream, salsa, and/or cilantro.

Eton Mess

eat. Last September while visiting my friend Sara Jane in Northumberland (her village is spittin’ distance from the Wall), she made a smashing dinner of roast pork, fabulously crispy roast potatoes, and several different veg. I didn’t think I’d have room for dessert, but when she set it on the table, I had an immediate change of heart: there before me was a bowl of what looked like luscious whipped cream mixed with bits of fruit. Ah, cream!

“What is it?” I asked.

“Eton Mess.”

“Eton what?” Turns out Eton Mess is a hallowed dish of the English public school of the same name, composed of whipped cream, fruit, and pieces of meringue. It dates back to the 19th century, and was originally made with bananas, but is now traditionally made with strawberries. The dessert is still served at the annual cricket match between the Eton boys and their nearby rivals from Winchester College.

As to the “mess” part, well that’s a bit obvious once you take a look at the dessert: a big bowl of creamy glop.

my finished product

I can tell you that Sara Jane’s Eton Mess was amazing: the tart strawberries perfectly cut the richness of the cream, and the crunchy meringue pieces provided a lightness that was simply heavenly. I’ve got to make this when I get home, I vowed.

Since I had egg whites left over from my lemon curd, I decided to make meringues and use them in an Eton Mess to take to our French conversation group’s annual Bastille Day luncheon.

The Meringues:

I’d never made meringues before, but they turned out to be quite simple, using only two ingredients: egg whites and sugar.

If your egg whites have been in the refrigerator, take them our and let them come up to room temperature before starting (this hastens the rather long and tedious whipping process).

put the egg whites in a large glass or metal bowl,
to allow plenty of room for them to expand

Preheat the oven to 190°F. Line a baking pan with non-stick parchment paper (I used one of those silicone baking liners).

Beat 4 egg whites until foamy, and then sprinkle in 1 ½ cups superfine sugar, a little at a time, whipping in between.


Continue beating until the mixture becomes stiff, and shiny like satin. Be patient: this can take 10 or even 15 minutes, if you have an old mixer like mine. (My hand mixer is from the 1950s, and towards the end of my mixing process one of the beaters came loose and caused them to jam:


You’ll see when you make them that the meringue batter is very sticky. So rather than get myself completely covered in the sugary goo, I decided to just dump the beaters into a bowl of water in the sink to soak, figuring the whites were sufficiently beaten to work. They were still a bit soft, but ended making perfectly good meringues.)

Spoon the meringue batter into a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip,


and pipe the cookies out onto the baking sheet:


As you can see, mine were a little droopy and could have stood more beating, but they held their form enough to work.


Bake the cookies for about 3 hours, or until they are dry. You can test them periodically, breaking one open to make sure it’s hard all the way through. You don’t want chewy meringues for an Eton Mess, as it’s the crunch you’re after. (Some folks say to put a wooden spoon handle in the oven door to allow the moisture to escape, but I didn’t do this as it meant my oven light would have been on for 3 hours.) Here are what my cookies looked like when they were done (I flipped them over to cool):



To put together the Eton Mess:

(Note: it’s best to wait until shortly before service to compose the Mess, so the meringues don’t get soggy.)

Whip 1 pint of heavy cream (adding 2 T sugar and 1 t vanilla extract) until stiff:


Have ready your meringues, whipped cream, and fruit. Although strawberries are traditional, I opted for berries—a mix of raspberries and blackberries—so the dish would be bleu-blanc-rouge for the Fête Nationale:


Break the meringues into bite-size pieces (you should have about equal parts meringue and whipped cream):


Mix half the whipped cream with half the meringue pieces in a large serving bowl:


Top with half the berries (I used two baskets total for the dish):


Repeat for a second layer:

my mom gave me this swell trifle bowl

Spoon into bowls and enjoy the Mess!

(serves 8-10)

[By the way: Some of you may have noticed a recipe in yesterday’s USA Weekend magazine (you know—that throwaway thing in everyone’s Sunday newspaper). This is pure coincidence; I’ve been meaning to write this blog for a couple of weeks. And I prefer my recipe to theirs, which seems way too sweet.]