Cucumber Salad for Winter
This one keeps summer in a jar without any cooking: the cucumbers and onion are simply sliced, tossed with dill and dressing, and left to sit. That’s why the finished relish carries both the sweetness of the onion and the heady scent of fresh dill, something you never get from pickled cucumbers.
It all comes down to the two-hour rest before canning. The salt and sugar pull out the juices, the cucumbers and onion drink up the dressing and firm slightly, so no excess liquid pools in the jar. Only a tiny amount of 70% vinegar goes in (a concentrated essence, roughly six times stronger than the 9% table vinegar Western cooks usually have), so measure it carefully and stir it through the whole batch rather than onto one spot.
Because the processing is short (just 10 minutes for a quart jar), this must be stored cold, in a cellar or the fridge. Pick small, firm pickling cucumbers with fine seeds; they stay crunchy through the heat, while overgrown ones go soft.
Part of Eastern European cuisine — 68 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Finely chop the dill, and slice the onions into rings or half-rings.
Slice the cucumbers into rounds depending on their size, then cut the rounds in half or into quarters.
Combine all the ingredients, mix, and let stand for 2 hours so the vegetables release their juices.
Pack into sterilized jars and process: 10 minutes for quart jars.
Seal and store in the cold.
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