The first time I had fancy "restaurant's own recipe" house made pickles was at Iron Starr BBQ a few years ago. I'm sure I've had house-made pickles before at various restaurants but this was the first time that it was brought to my attention. The menu highlighted them and our waiter praised them. After the waiter left our table, Wes told me that he's had them before and they were gross. LOL Their pickles were okay. I didn't really like them but I wouldn't say they were gross either. I never really paid much attention to pickles after that.
Fast forward a few years... I had dinner at Goro Ramen and they have the best house made pickles ever! I excitedly went home to tell Wes. He replied by telling me that ALL house-made pickles are gross. They're never pickled enough and they always still taste like cucumbers--and he hates cucumbers. A few weeks after that, we had dinner at Uptown Grocery (By the way, having a hot bar & salad bar inside of a grocery store is GENIUS! You get to have dinner and then go grocery shopping all in one place.) I got some of their pickles and they were awesomely delicious. How does Wes not understand this? With that, I decided that we needed to make our own house-made pickles that wouldn't be gross; ours would be pickled enough and no longer taste like cucumbers.
House-made pickle recipe:
Ingredients needed- 3 cucumbers, 1 teaspoon (1/2 teaspoon per jar) minced garlic, a handful of fresh basil (most recipes call for fresh dill but we are only growing basil & mint and I don't think mint pickles will taste as good), a pinch of red pepper flakes*, 1 cup water, 1 cup vinegar, 1 1/2 tablespoons salt, two jars with airtight lids
*We actually made two batches... one jar of spears with only basil & garlic and then a jar of round discs with red pepper flakes added.
1. Wash & dry the cucumbers. Cut off both ends and slice into spears or rounds.
2. Chop the basil.
3. Put the garlic, chopped basil and pepper flakes into the jars.
4. Place the cut cucumbers into the jar.
5. Boil water, vinegar and salt. (This will be the pickling brine.)
6. Pour brine into jars. Make sure the cucumbers are covered completely. I did this in the sink so it wouldn't make a mess if the brine spilled.
7. Tap the jars against the counter a few times to remove the air bubbles then put the lid on. Make sure it is nice & tight.
8. Let jars cool and then refrigerate. Leave in the refrigerator for 2 weeks. (Wes prefers 3 weeks to make sure they're pickled enough with no annoying cucumber flavoring.) Then look... yummy pickles!
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