Food PreservationTechniques: Learn

Food Preservation
Techniques: Learn How to
Pickle Pickling can capture the tremendous flavors of
crops when they’re at their seasonal peak — which
is also when they’re least expensive! — so you can
relish them year-round. By Eugenia Bone
November 17, 2010 The following is an excerpt from Well-Preserved by Eugenia Bone (Random House, 2009). This hybrid cookbook/training manual will teach you
techniques for putting up small batches of foods
to make them last beyond their season, and show
you how to savor your preserved bounty with
scrumptious recipes such as Scallop and Tomatillo Ceviche, Smoked Chicken and Wild Rice Salad, Concord Grape Walnut Tart, and more. This
excerpt is from Chapter 1, “All About Canning.” I am not an enthusiastic cucumber pickle eater. I pretty much like two kinds: bread-and-butter
pickles made into a relish to eat with hamburgers
and hot dogs and little sour cornichons to eat
with pâté. However, there are many dishes I eat
that call for vinegar, as in sausages with cauliflower, and so there was a certain logic in preparing pickled cauliflower: Having it on hand
meant that instead of adding vinegar when
cooking the sausages and then blanching the
cauliflower and adding it as well, I could simply
dump the contents of my jar over the browned sausage and be done. So, besides the pleasure of preserving a food when it is cheap and seasonal
— and there is nothing more tempting than a
fresh, tight, white head of cauliflower and little
more disappointing than watching it brown over
the course of a week in the fridge — I have the added satisfaction of knowing all I need to make dinner is to pick up a pound or two of fresh
sausages and a bunch of fresh parsley to prepare
a delicious (and quick) meal. What is pickling? Pickling is the process of preserving foods in a high-acid solution, either by
adding vinegar or naturally by means of
fermentation. Spoilers cannot grow in a high-acid
environment. This state of high acidity is achieved
in two ways: by means of salt and with vinegar (though when you pickle with vinegar, you add salt as well). Pickling With Salt Pickling with salt falls into two categories: dry salt and brined. The dry salt method combines dry salt
with vegetables in quantities above what you
would add for seasoning purposes. Liquid
(watery juices) is pulled from the vegetables, and
this liquid combines with the salt to create a brine — a salty, watery solution. With the premade brine method, a vegetable is placed in a
combination of salt and water. In both cases, the
vegetables are covered in brine for a prescribed
amount of time. In this submerged, airless state
(below the brine line), the vegetables ferment. Fermentation is the process by which the natural bacteria in the foods convert the sugars into lactic
acid. Lactic acid is a natural preservative.
Depending on its strength, microorganisms will
not grow in lactic acid because of its low pH (high
acidity). As a result, low-acid foods such as cabbage can be canned safely in a water bath canner and stored on the shelf for up to a year
after fermentation is complete. Lactic acid also
supplies that yummy sour taste — hence the
name sauerkraut. Pickling With Vinegar Pickling with vinegar is a much quicker process. In vinegar pickling, the vegetable does not
ferment. Usually, the vegetable rests for a short
time in a brine (to add crispness and flavor), is
drained, often brought to a boil in a vinegar
solution, packed into jars, covered in the remaining hot vinegar solution, and water bath canned for long-term preservation. The acetic
acid in vinegar brings up the acidity of the
vegetable to a point where no microorganisms
can thrive. Acetic acid, by the way, is flavorless
and colorless. When a recipe calls for vinegar that is 5 percent acid, that means the vinegar is 5 percent acetic acid. When making pickled foods, it is critical that you use very fresh ingredients. If you start out to make sauerkraut with an old, soft cabbage, your end product will