Sort of recently, I recruited my roommate into making some pickles with me. I gave him the arduous task of slicing all of the pickles to 1/4″ thickness – a task he deftly accomplished given he’s an architect and making things exact is his forte.
This is my roommate. He’s really happy not to be chopping onions.
Meanwhile, I chopped onion and made the brine that we would use to boil the sliced cucumber in later. After the chopping was done, we put everything in a bowl and covered it with salt and a tea towel, on which I covered with ice to chill down the vegetables.
Then, the next morning, I drained the ice, rinsed the salt from the onions and cucumbers, and let them boil in the vinegar sauce before canning them. making bread and butter pickles is a pretty easy process…as long as you’re not making an incredible amount of them. Because in that case, you need a cooler and two whole days for all the chopping, boiling, canning, and so on. We weren’t making too many…let’s call it a test batch, so it only took us a little over an hour that night and a little over an hour in the morning…and then we had pickles!!! Nom nom nom.
Here’s the recipe: Bread and Butter Pickles