Pickle recipe

This recipe is for one of our favourite pickles.  It is not expensive to make and you can play around a little bit with the quantities and it will still be fine.  I found the recipe originally in a book from the 1970s by Alison Burt called "Preserves and Pickles".  I thought I'd share it because it is so easy.

It is a recipe that gives an amount of "prepared apple" which I really like because you can use windfalls.  If you only have a box of windfalls then it is a bit difficult to judge how many bits of reasonable apple equal the amount of whole apple in the recipe.  My ancient jam recipe book (HMSO book from the 1960s) also tends to take the "prepared apple" approach. 

Sweet Pickle with Apple

2 lbs apple (prepared)
2 cucumbers
4 large onions
1/2 pint brown malt vinegar
8 ozs white sugar
1 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon each ground ginger and turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Peel cucumber and cut into 1/4 inch dice.
Peel and chop onions finely.
Place prepared apple, onions and cucumber in a pan with all the remaining ingredients.
Bring to the boil, stirring all the time to make sure the sugar is dissolved.
Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Put the pickle into hot, clean jars and seal immediately.

Notes on how I did it this time:
I didn't have any turmeric so I left it out.
My celery seed has a price label of 40p and it must be ancient - so I was generous with it.
One of my cucumbers had gone off so I just used one.
My onions were what I would have called "medium" so I used five.
I had a small amount of spiced vinegar left from last autumn's preserving so I used that.

I've had a bug and am off work so I couldn't face standing to do all that chopping and I used the food processor to chop it all.  Next time I might use the grater attachment as processed cucumber was a bit of a mistake...  All the previous times I've made this pickle, I've chopped everything finely by hand and it does give a nicer looking pickle but the key thing is the taste.  After all, when the pickle is in a sandwich, I can't see whether everything is neatly chopped or not : )

This pickle will be ready to eat before Christmas.  It is sweet and tangy and is wonderful in a cheese sandwich.  If you like your pickle hot and spicy, then add something to pep it up.  It is a very tolerant pickle. It also keeps well.  I've got a jar from the batch I made three years ago and it is just lovely.

Edited to say that this quantity made 8 jars this time.  The jars were all smaller pickle jars that would have held about 12ozs or a little bit less.