SWEET CUCUMBER CHUNKS

A very sweet cucumber pickle

My wife's grandmother provided us with this wonderful pickle recipe.

Ingredients

(Serves many)

10 cucumbers, not too fat
8 cups sugar
2 Tbsp pickling spice (see note)
5 tsp salt (noniodized salt is best)
4 cups vinegar

Procedure

Wash cucumbers and place in large pot. Pour boiling water over cucumbers until they are covered. Let stand for 24 hours and then drain. Repeat this procedure for three (3) days. The cucumbers will be rather slimy after this. This is normal.
On the fourth day drain and slice into bite-size chunks. If the cucumbers are fat you can halve or quarter the chunks so you end up with bite-size pieces.
Combine the remaining ingredients. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. Pour cooked mixture over the cucumber pieces.
Return to a boil, but just a boil. Do not cook. Pour cucumbers and liquid mixture into canning jars and seal. Jars should be sealed in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Notes

These are best if they sit for a month or so after canning, to give them time to work. If you use iodized salt, they are more likely to get cloudy during that month.

If your grocery does not sell premixed "pickling spice" mixtures, try various combinations of mustard seeds, celery seeds, coriander, dill, or any other strongly-flavored spices that you like.

We increase this recipe by several times. Last year we used about 200 cucumbers.

Rating

Difficulty: easy.
Time: 4 days of soaking. About 1-2 hours of real work.
Precision: Approximate measure ok.

Contributor

 
Jim Roche 
University of Rochester, Computer Science Department 
roche@cs.rochester.edu rochester!roche

Recipe last modified: 20 Mar 87

Original header

Path: decwrl!recipes
From: roche@rochester.arpa (James Roche
Newsgroups: alt.gourmand
Subject: RECIPE: Sweet cucumber chunks
Message-ID: <11647@decwrl.DEC.COM>
Date: 11 Sep 87 03:08:50 GMT
Sender: recipes@decwrl.DEC.COM
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Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, New York, USA
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