QUICKLES

How great a treat for the tongue is “quick pickling”—something the cook can do year-round with all manner of produce. Read the story below, after the recipe.

RECIPE: Quick-Pickled Cucumbers With Rice Vinegar
From J. Kenji López-Alt, seriouseats.com; makes about 1 pint

Ingredients
1 cup rice wine vinegar
1 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
4 cups thinly sliced Japanese or English cucumbers (about 3 Japanese or 1 English)

Directions
Combine vinegar, water, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from heat. Add cucumber slices and stir. Cover with a clean kitchen towel or a double layer of heavy-duty paper towels, pressing down until towel is saturated with liquid and in direct contact with the cucumbers. Let rest 10 minutes, then transfer cucumbers to a sealable container. Top up with liquid and discard the rest. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

“Quickles”—quick-pickled anything.

STORY:
Come summer’s end, you steel yourself for certain rituals when you have friends who garden. The knock at the door and the thigh-sized zucchini. The picked-a-peck of cucumbers looking like witch’s fingers. Or the— blessed hen’s tooth!—“Here, I can’t eat another tomato.”

Little woe comes in the eating; the rub is what to do with all these, um, gifts. (More later in the season, of course. I’ve developed a terrific recipe for cooking withered vegetables that have been peeking at autumn.)

But I’ve also discovered, due mostly to a logjam of cucumbers, how great a treat for the tongue is “quick pickling”—something the cook can do year-round with all manner of produce.

“Quick pickling” says it all: vegetables are preserved in a simple mix of water, vinegar and salt (sometimes also sugar) and kept in the refrigerator. You might add basic flavorings such as garlic or dill fronds.

The flavors in quick pickling aren’t developed or complex because you neither can (as in “put up”) nor ferment, but they are pure and fresh. (They’re also fleeting; quick pickles last a short while only.)

It’s easy to decide what to quick pickle. If you like eating it fresh or raw—cucumber or carrot, for instance, cabbage or thin-skinned squash—it’s a candidate.

Some vegetables take to slicing into “coins,” such as cucumbers, carrots and squashes, although any of those are also fine as spears. You may partially or completely peel either carrots or cucumbers, but the decision rests mainly on an assessment of how thick or ingrained with soil the skin is to begin with.

If you’re quick pickling vegetables such as long beans or asparagus, it helps to preserve their vibrant green if you blanch them before pickling.

I prefer using rice vinegar as my choice for the sour end, although cider or red or white wine vinegar also works. Don’t use powerful vinegars such as balsamic or sherry; their concentrated flavors—and sometimes intensely dark hue—overtake the native gentleness and brightness of quick pickling.

Beyond the basic trio of water, vinegar and salt, quick pickling flavor add-ins include both fresh and dried herbs (especially dill and thyme) and garlic. Smashed small cloves of garlic actually release less and more subtle flavor than super-thin slices of the same, so keep that in mind.

I’d shy away from a wholesale dump of so-called “pickling spices” in favor of a judicious use of only one or two of the following: black or yellow mustard seeds; green or black cardamom pods; coriander seeds; and black or white peppercorns. The “ding” of one or two flavor notes is prettier on the palate than the cacophony of too many goings-on at once.