Recipe KKA's pickled onions

[karadekoolaid]

Ingredients:

1 kg small onions (pickling onions; a bit smaller than a ping pong ball!)
250 mls white vinegar
250 mls wine vinegar (red or white)
2-3 dried chile peppers, broken up
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp black peppercorns
4 bay leaves, broken up
2-3 tsps sugar
2 tsps salt
3 500cc jars (mayonnaise type jars)

Method:

• Top, tail and peel the onions. Remove any dark or mouldy pieces and set aside.
• In a small pan, add the two vinegars, the salt and the sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally, until the sugar and salt are dissolved.
• Mix all the dry spices together and add 1/3rd of the mixture to each jar. Fill the jars with the onions, then cover with the hot vinegar.
• Seal tightly with the lid and leave for at least 2 weeks until consuming.

 

[Herbaceous]

The small pickled onion remind me of the pickled onions my parents make every summer - they use 10 lbs of silverskin onions, individually peel them all, and then spend 7 nights brining them (changing the brine each evening) before jarring them in syrup. This looks like a much simpler alternative!

 

[karadekoolaid]

10 lbs of silverskin onions,

Peeling that lot is definitely a labour of love!

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

Two weeks seems quite quick
Do they get better the longer you leave them?

 

[karadekoolaid]

Two weeks seems quite quick
Do they get better the longer you leave them?

I get desperate without pickled onions!
Two weeks is bare minimum. I'd prefer them after 2 months, probably, but I have wolfed down a few after 2 weeks.

 

[MrsDangermouse]

I love pickled onions - have you ever tried them pickled in balsamic vinegar?
I noticed you didn't salt them beforehand....every other recipe I've read tells you to salt them for 24 hours to draw out the moisture, supposedly it helps to keep the onions crunchy and stops them going soft in the pickle.

 

[Barriehie]

In regards to crunchy if you soak them in an ice water bath for 30 minutes prior to jarring, and cut about 1/8" off both ends, they keep the crunch better. The ends have an enzyme that breaks down the "crunch". Also best to use salt w/out any additives. I use sea salt; the other chlorides in it help with crunch. Commercially they add calcium chloride which is already present in sea salt.

 

[karadekoolaid]

I love pickled onions - have you ever tried them pickled in balsamic vinegar?

Can't say I have. It'd raise the cost considerably, however; 500 mls balsamic costs about $10 over here.

 

[MrsDangermouse]

Can't say I have. It'd raise the cost considerably, however; 500 mls balsamic costs about $10 over here.

You're right, decent balsamic is far too expensive to use for pickling, but I wonder about using one of the lower grade ones. If we end up in Italy this summer I might bring a big bottle of cheap balsamic home to try it out.

We occasionally get cipollini balsamic pickled onions from a local farm shop....only for an occasional treat though as they're rather expensive too, but absolutely delicious

 

[karadekoolaid]

We occasionally get cipollini balsamic pickled onions from a local farm shop...

Yummy! While I was in the UK in 2022, we bought some at a farmer's market in West Malling. they were all gone by the end of the week!