“Summer Joy” Salad
Open one jar and you’ve got cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrot, and pepper all pickled together in a clove-scented brine. The most curious touch is a tablespoon of vodka: it acts as an extra preservative and helps the vegetables hold their bright color. In place of vinegar the recipe uses citric acid (sold in US baking aisles as sour salt), which gives a cleaner, gentler tang than a vinegar brine.
The method that makes it work is a double pour. The vegetables first get a 10-minute soak in boiling water, which is drained off, and only then does the hot brine go in. This heats dense vegetables through from the inside, so the jars don’t need a separate water-bath sterilization.
- Don’t cut that first 10-minute boiling-water soak short; it’s what warms the cores of the tomatoes and carrot.
- Use small, firm pickling cucumbers. Thin-skinned salad ones will go soft.
- If you’d rather skip the alcohol, you can, but then keep the jars refrigerated only.
Serve as a colorful appetizer for a festive spread. After sealing, flip the jars and let them cool under a towel before moving them to a cool cellar.
Part of Ukrainian cuisine — 464 more recipes in the section.
You might also like
Ingredients
Instructions
Cut the cabbage into slices, the cucumbers into wedges, halve the red tomatoes and onion, cut the carrot into rounds, and halve the bell pepper. Chop the parsley and add a few cloves of garlic.
Pack all the vegetables into 1- to 2-liter jars, pour over boiling water for 10 minutes, then drain off the water.
Boil the brine: in 1 liter of water dissolve the sugar, salt, and vodka, add the cloves, peppercorns, and citric acid, and bring to a boil.
Pour the boiling brine over the vegetables and seal immediately.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.