Vegetable Pickles – Good for a Graze, Good for the Gut
Welcome to the second instalment of my series where I test out recipes from an obscure 1990s Italian Cookbook. This time, I’m testing another recipe from the antipasto section: Pickled Vegetables (Sottaceti):
Admittedly, this doesn’t sound like the most appealing dish in the world, but fermented foods have regained popularity in recent years, particularly for their gut health benefits. We enjoyed them as part of a small mezze, consisting of homemade flatbreads, hummus, and bulgur wheat salad:
I broke a few rules with this recipe:
- I couldn’t find mustard seeds, so I substituted them with fennel seeds instead. The end result was lovely and you can definitely experiment with other seeds like cumin or coriander.
- I had plenty of white balsamic vinegar to hand in my cupboard and used this instead of wine vinegar.
- Instead of using six small onions, I chopped a large red onion into chunks.
There were also quite a few issues with this recipe:
- The size of jar required was never specified, so I used the biggest one I had – around 1.8L. It was a bit of a squeeze, therefore I would recommend a 2-3L to ensure the vegetables are properly immersed in the brine.
- I also couldn’t quite believe that this recipe didn’t call for any salt – I added about two tablespoons for good measure.
- Deseeding the cucumbers also seemed to be an unnecessary task which could easily be skipped.
- There was no specification of where to store the pickle for the fermentation process – I just placed it in the fridge.
BOOK RECIPE RATING: 8/10
Overall, this dish was a crowd pleaser. The final taste was great, but the recipe itself required quite a few alterations and some cooks institution. Here’s my revised version if you’d like to give it a go:
Vegetable Pickles (Sottaceti)
Equipment
- 1 2-3L sterilised jar
Ingredients
- ¼ cauliflower chopped into small florets
- 2 carrots peeled and chopped into batons
- 1 large red onion chopped into chunks
- 1 cucumber chopped into batons
- 1 red pepper deseeded and chopped into strips
- 600 ml red or white wine vinegar you can also use apple cider, rice wine, white balsamic, or any you have to hand
- 12 black peppercorns
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds or any other dried seed such as mustard, cumin, fenugreek
- 2 tablespoons salt
Instructions
- Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and cook the cauliflower, carrot, and onion for 2 minutes. Drain and allow to cool.
- In a large bowl, combine the cooked vegetables with the cucumber and pepper. Spoon into a sterilised jar.
- In a large jug, combine the vinegar, peppercorns, fennel seeds, and salt. Pour this brine into the sterilised jar, immersing the vegetables.
- Place in the fridge for at least one week before eating.
Notes
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Watch the cooking process here:
