Pickled peppers, red onions and radishes

Theres usually an amalgam of random items left over from a shoot. Here’s a recipe for some quickish pickles I made that turned out rather wonderful. Use any crunchy vegetable you like or have on hand, though the peppers do lend a nice sweetness to the pickle.

Makes 4 about quarts

4 large Red, Orange or Yellow bell peppers or combination of

2 Red Onions

1 Bunch radishes 

2 Serrano chiles or Jalapeños 

For the Brine:

9 cups of Apple Cider vinegar

3 tsp of whole black pepper corns

3 tsp of whole coriander seeds

18 Cardamom pods

3 tsp of yellow or brown mustard seeds

8 bay leaves 

15 all spice berries

1/4 cup of sugar

3 teaspoons of kosher salt

1. Place all the ingredients for the brine in a sauce pan and heat over high heat until it comes to a boil. Cover and allow to the aromatics to steep in the hot vinegar while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2. Halve the bell peppers, seed them and remove the veins.  Slice them into 1/4" thick slices.

3. Halve and peel the onions, cut off the root end and cut them into 1/4" half moons lengthwise 

4. Cut the tops off the radishes and depending on their size, quarter or halve them

5. Slice the chiles into 1/4" rounds.  If you want less heat use jalapeños or deseed and de-vein the chiles. Or omit completely

6. Stuff your sterilized containers tightly with all the peppers, radishes, onions and spicy peppers.  Bring the brine back to a boil and poor into the containers.  Let cool completely and store them in the refrigerator.  You can use them immediately but as with most pickles time makes them better. Give them a week for the flavors to marry.

I find that hot canning bell peppers so they are shelf stable makes them mushy and not palatable. Let me know if you find success with it!

These will keep for 6 months in the fridge.