This one is a total experiment, no idea how it will turn out, and wont be able to try for at least a few weeks (le tres sad). Naturally living in this godforsaken city, at pickling time I cannot find fresh dill. I had bought a small container of pickling cukes at the grocery store to try and give this all a shot -having never made pickles before. I didn't want to make sweet pickles because firstly, they aren't really my favorite (my favorites are Tony Packo's from Ohio,) and secondly after my Grandmother is done I will have another years surplus of them. The pickles probably only had a few more days before they went south, so I went on a limb -curry. I figured people from India have been pickling veg, and making chutneys for hundreds of years, this almost has to work. Ideally if you make your own masala feel free to use that. I made the decision not to grind the spices up, or use turmeric because I did not really want to cloud the brine. The hope is because of the added toasting, and cracking of the spices the flavour will slowly leach out into the brine.

Ingredients

3 – 500ml Canning jars

Pickling cucumbers (sorry I forgot to weight them)

500 ml – Vinegar

500 ml – Water

¼ cup – Salt

6 cloves - Garlic

Spice Mixture:

2 tbsp – Cumin

1.5 tbsp – Coriander

1 tbsp – Mustard seed

1 tbsp - Peppercorn

0.5 tbsp – Fenugreek
3 - Cardamom seeds (green)

3 – Cloves

3 – Dried Chiles (can use fresh but process as for garlic and cukes.)

3 – Bay leaves

1 – Star Anise (broken up)

½ - Cinnamon stick (broken up)

Method

First step is first, clean and sterilize EVERYTHING that this stuff will come in contact with. Get a book on the actual preserving method, as frankly I am too lazy how to describe sterilizing cans. Everything is ready to go? Sterilized? Clean?

Take your spice mixture and gently toast them on a pan, when finished I let cool and gently cracked them in a mortar and pestle to help release some of the flavour. Add these to your CLEAN and STERILIZED canning jars followed by the garlic and cucumbers.

Bring the vinegar, water, and salt to a boil. Carefully ladle the boiling mixture into the canning jars, leaving the appropriate amount of head space (you will most likely have to look at the manufacturers directions for this, but it is usually to the bottom of the rim). Add the lids and just finger tighten. Add your jars upright into your canning vessel. I am too poor to buy one of those fancy canning vessels, so I am using my double boiler pasta pot. Fill with water till jars are covered by at least and inch, and bring to the boil. When boiling set your timer to 10 minutes plus one minute for every 500 feet above sea level. To be safe in Southern Ontario I going about 12. Let cool, and remove from water. Leave for 24 hours, check to make sure the seal has worked, and keep in a cool dark place (if they last that long). Also if the seal dosent pop dont reprocess them, or throw them out. They are still edible, keep in the fridge for up to a few weeks (realistically probably longer). Now we play the waiting game, and I will let you know how they turn out.