If you use The Joy of Pickling or you have traveled in the Middle East, you may be familiar with pink pickled vegetables, colored by either a bit of beet or some sliced red cabbage. Although the pink turnip and cauliflower pickles in my book are made with vinegar, fermented pickles are also popular in the Middle East. In fact, as one of my readers told me a couple of years ago, when he lived in Egypt the local pickles were always brined, with no added vinegar. On a counter in every kitchen, batch after batch of pickles would be were fermented in a jar whose brine was seldom thrown out, although I would guess that salt was added from time to time.
Were those Egyptian pickles pink? I’m not sure whether I asked, but adding beet or red cabbage does the trick whether you’re using vinegar or fermenting in brine. With this in mind, I made brined pink cauliflower to share at a recent preserving fair in Albany, Oregon. Here is the recipe:
Brine-Pickled Pink Cauliflower
1 pound cauliflower florets
½ teaspoon caraway seeds
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 Mediterranean bay leaf
1 small beet, or a piece of a larger beet, cut into chunks
2 small dried hot peppers, slit lengthwise
1½ tablespoons pickling salt
1 quart water
In a 2-quart jar, mix the cauliflower, caraway, garlic, bay, beet, and hot peppers. Dissolve the pickling salt in the water, and pour it over the cauliflower. Weight the cauliflower, cover the jar loosely, and let it stand at room temperature.
After about five to six days, when the cauliflower is as sour as you like, cap the jar and store it in the refrigerator. Or leave it on the kitchen counter, if you prefer, but expect the cauliflower to get more and more sour and eventually to soften somewhat.
I’m not sure whether I like the flavor of this pickle better than that of the vinegared version; brining seems to bring out more of the cauliflower’s bitterness. But I love the firm texture and lewd color of the fermented florets.
You can certainly vary the aromatics to suit your taste. Dill—already forming seed heads in my garden!—might be an excellent addition or alternative to the caraway.
Lovely post, Linda!
This makes me want to grow cauliflower in the fall, just so I can pickle it pink! Thanks for posting! 🙂
Hi Linda,
Do you think I can use this same recipe and substitute the cauliflower for turnips?
Thank you,
Karen
Yes, Karen, I think that would work well. I would quarter small turnips or cut larger ones into eighths. Let me know how they turn out, OK?
Linda, I will let you know how the brined turnips work out. Karen
Yes!!
Hi Linda, I have a question about preserving red peppers. For the past few years i have roasted red peppers and layered them with vinegar and olive oil and kept them in a jar in the fridge. They have lasted for months this way but this year they are getting moldy after just a couple of weeks. Do you have any suggestion as to why this year is different and what i could do to keep my peppers? Is there a way i could re-pack and waterbath can them? I would really like to avoid having to throw them out. Thank you, Darla
Darla, perhaps you are packing too many peppers into the jar? They should be loosely packed and well covered by the vinegar and oil.
I can roasted peppers in vinegar according to the recipe on page 134 of the 2nd edition of The Joy of Pickling. The recipe as printed doesn’t include olive oil, but I often add a little olive oil to the top of each jar.
If you can the peppers that are now in your refrigerator, the boiling-water bath should destroy any stray mold spores. Of course, you’ll want to throw out any peppers that are actually moldy.