This year I was determined not to make too much of pickling, one sort only; cabbages. Some of last year’s green tomato pickles are still in the pantry and all the pickeled cabbage is long gone. There might be many different ways of pickling the food, depending on which vegetable is used but I am only accustomed to one; the one way I learned from my parents. If you have never tried before, you might enjoy giving it a try at least once to experience the chemistry.

I think one of the crucial ingredients in making pickles is to add dry chickpeas (garbanzos) at the bottom of the glass jar. It helps the fermentation, and at the end you will have a clear pickle juice. Also, adding a bunch of nice smelly herbs is a must. We are used to adding mint only as mint is *widely* used in Turkish kitchen. But surely I have heard and seen people adding dill and celery leaves as well. Just experiment.

It will be hard to give any measurements but I will try to explain the technique only.

First, make sure to choose unripe, hard and healthy vegetables to pickle. Usually green tomatoes, cabbage, small pickling cucumbers, carrots, green beans are the first that come to my mind. Recently, I have heard and now trying making pickle from unripe melons as well! These unripe melons came from our backyard. I thought all were unripe until I decided to cut open one; as small as a tennis ball but already ripe. Surely they are not very sweet yet, leaving by the window sil would ripen them, I hope. Anyway, back to pickles. ;)
Seconly, you need to make sure you have pickling salt. Regular table salt would not do. And you also need vinegar — 5% acidity.

Start by getting the vegetables ready first; poke the green tomatoes, unripe melons, cucumbers by a fork. Cut the cabbage about an inch thick, discarding the outer leaves. Gather some hot peppers, if you like your food hot, last but definitely not the least is to get some garlic (about a head of garlic per cabbage head, or a lb of tomatoes) and take their skins off.

In a sterilized jar, first put the chickpeas and layer the vegetables in the order you’d like to pack as much of them as possible. Don’t forget to sprinkle garlic and hot peppers in between. Once you are done packing them, put a bunch of mint and top it with a clean rock, a smaller jar or a small plate on the veggies to keep them down when we add the juice.

For the pickling juice, we make a brine using salt + water, and for 3 parts of salty water, we add one part of vinegar. Use the “egg measure” to make sure you add adequate amount of salt to water as I have described before in preserving grape leaves. Pour the juice (salty water + vinegar) over the packed vegetables. Close the lid tightly, leave the jar in a cool place for at least a month without openning its lid. And later, check if they are done. Enjoy!

Most of you who has been reading this site might have realized that we, Turks, do not use a lot of spices but usually include another taste-enhancer in our dishes: red pepper paste. Very easy to make, this red pepper paste can be used in nearly every casserole you can think of. You can surely buy it from a Middle Eastern Store or online, but if you have a chance to buy these type of red peppers, I’d suggest trying making them home.

Last weekend I visited a very close friend of mine in Stockton.  We found these red peppers that I could not find anywhere else before. Being in San Joaquin Valley where they grow everything that loves heat, I guess I should not have been surprised.  Got 2lbs to make my first ever paste.

All I had to do was to wash them, halve and seed them before chopping them finely in a food chopper. For 2 lbs of peppers, I added a tablespoonful of salt, mixed well and put in a glass dish. There is amazing amount of juice coming out the peppers. And the next task is to make sure all are dried so we can save the paste yeararound. Covered with cheesecloth, I put the dish under the sun for a few days. I tried to stir it at least 4 – 5 times daily, and at the end of the 4th day, most of the moustuire was evaporated and I had a thick, nice pepper paste. Put in a jar, topped with some olive oil to make sure it does not go bad.  Out of 2 lbs (1kg) of red peppers, I ended up having 7oz (200gr) paste.
My very first one! I am excited and thinking about growing my own red peppers (not the usual bell peppers!) next year.