The PRO Pickle | Recipe
I came around to pickles and pickling relatively late in life. In my childhood, I liked relish on a Dodger dog... and that was about it. I usually handed off the sandwich pickle wedge to a very grateful and enthusiastic lunch buddy, and truly longed to both understand and share in their childlike, pickle-induced joy. I am happy to report that sometime in my early twenties (probably correlated with my move to the PNW) I came to understand and emphatically share in that briney love. My joining the vast ranks of of pickle lovers has a lot to do with falling in love with canning and realizing that a pickle can be made out of almost anything. I've since settled on a few hard and fast favorites: pickled red onion, pickled white turnip, and pickled beet. I've still got big love for a very well-made classic cucumber pickle, but that trio of salty, magenta gems can't be beat in my book.
Let's call them PROs from here on out for brevity's sake (and conveniently cute acronyms's sake). The thing about PROs is that they're freaking awesome on everything and a very easy way to impress your friends. I make them as refrigerator pickles (which means you skip the whole boiling water canning method and just pop those babies in the fridge. If you're not sold on my declaration that PROs taste good on everything, let me offer some suggestions to break you in: fried eggs and toast (with mustard), salads, tacos, a crostini with cream cheese or other slightly tart spreadable cheese on it, cheese of all kinds, burgers of all kinds, grilled fish or red meat, a clean fork... But perhaps my favorite thing to top with PROs is hummus. (The same awesome-on-everything argument could be made for hummus too, amiright?).
Aside from inarguably complimentary flavors, my affinity for PROs on hummus comes largely from a particularly pleasant evening spent with a different kind of pro - a veritable hummus pro named Mariana - a friend I'm grateful to have made during my master's fieldwork in Argentina. Mariana, called Berta by her friends, recently began a small business of making and packaging hummus to sell and deliver to people with great taste all over Buenos Aires - she calls it Berta's hummus. I met Mariana (and her husband and daughter) at their home on a warm summer evening. When I arrived, I was taken in with incredible warmth and generosity - of spirit and snacks alike. I had come to talk to Mariana about her Lebanese heritage, how it manifests in her kitchen and at her table, and the art of making fantastic hummus. So, naturally, she served up a plate of the silkiest, most well-balanced hummus I've ever had, with a cute AF jar of pickled red onions alongside. I think aside from both being half-Lebanese food enthusiasts, I knew we were kindred spirits when I saw that jar. She'd pulled them out because she just happened to have a jar in the fridge and because they taste great on everything, especially hummus. Casual killing it. Alas, aside from a fateful friend, Mariana is the inspiration for crostinis with hummus and PROs that I'll gobble up like I've never eaten before and am likely to serve at my next meal with COR Cellars in September (op! you heard it first!).In honor of backyard snacking, new friends, and pickles, here's my recipe for fridge-pickled red onions - an awesome way to brighten up your snack game and freshen up your dinner spread, especially in this heat wave...Enjoy!
INGREDIENTS
1 pound red onions
1 cup distilled white vinegar or apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon unrefined sugar
1 teaspoon all spice berries
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
INSTRUCTIONS
Slice your red onions nice and thin, but not too thin - you don't want them to be so thin they fall apart or get wilty-like and a little thickness will leave them with a satisfying crunch. (I recommend using a mandolin if you've got one!). Set aside.
Combine vinegar, water, sugar, and sugar in a mixing bowl. Stir to dissolve sugar and salt.
Add red onions to liquid mixture and stir the whole lot. Leave that bowl on the counter for a bit, maybe about half an hour to an hour.
Add the all spice berries and fennel seed to your mix. Stir. Scoop everything into a large glass jar with a clean utensil. Stick that jar in your fridge. Give it a day or two.
Eat it on everything! Techincally, this will stay good in your fridge for about 2-3 weeks, but I doubt it'll last that long during BBQ season.
