“Half a cup of vinegar and half a cup of water,” John Asta said, as he demonstrated how to make refrigerated pickles at the Oak Park Farmers Market on Saturday, July 11. “The ratios and volumes of salt, sugar, and vinegar is going to be more concentrated than if you were doing a hot brine.”
Asta works for Opportunity Knocks, a local organization with a mission to provide innovative and collaborative programs, enterprises and partnerships for people with intellectual and developmental differences. One of their enterprises is called “Knockout Pickles.”
Getting this group to demonstrate how to make quick pickles at the farmers market was the brainchild of market commissioners Woody Meachum and Macaire Ament.
“A big part of the market is about sustainability,” Meachum said. “Let’s stretch our food to last longer throughout the year. This is a way to take what we can get during the summer and make it last throughout the year.”
“It’s new ideas of how to use produce at the market,” Ament said. “I’ve never considered pickling fruit. I’ve heard them talk about all kinds of other produce that can be pickled.”
On the demo table were onions, cucumbers, carrots, peaches, cherries and more.
As people approached the table, Asta gave them the run-down. Next to him two others from Opportunity Knocks helped prep the veggies and gave out samples from the pickles varieties that the enterprise makes and sells to local restaurants. Jars are also available in local stores Sugar Beet Co-op, Alpine Food Shop, Riverside Foods to name a few.
“Everyone has been saying how good our pickles are,” Madeleine Gancer said.
As people watched onions were sliced, put in a mason jar with aromatics – garlic and dill.
“The versions that we sell have fresh dill from our garden, and we use dill seeds to really punch up the dill flavor,” Asta said. “Also a nice healthy amount of garlic because I love that, but not a requirement when you’re making them at home. And then this recipe we’re doing today is just with white vinegar, but you can use any sort of vinegar, depending on what type of flavor you’re looking for. You could use an apple cider vinegar, a champagne vinegar, or rice wine vinegar. In place of the sugar, you can also use honey, maple syrup.”
A starter kit consisting of a Mason jar with sugar and salt packets were available for people to take home and give it a try on their own.
Basic pickling recipe:
½ cup water
½ cup distilled white vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon kosher or pickling salt (not table salt)
1 teaspoon sugar (adjust more or less to your taste)
Aromatics:
2-3 cloves of garlic
1-2 sprigs of fresh dill (dill seed can add additional flavor boost)
½ teaspoon mustard seed or black peppercorns
Put the ingredients along with sliced or chopped veggies into a Mason-type jar. Put the lid on and shake gently. Pickles are ready in 24 hours after putting in the fridge, but will be at optimal flavor in about a week.
“If you like a little bit of heat in your pickles, you can throw in some red pepper flakes, or you could cut open a spicy pepper and put that in the jar and that will impart the spicy flavor in there,” Asta said.
Recipes for Swedish pressed cucumbers, Vietnamese carrot and daikon pickles, Mexican pickled jalapeños and carrots, Eastern European salted gherkins, pickled red cabbage and kimchi were also available.
A curious passer-by asked if the recipe could be used with Watermelon. The answer was yes!
The goal for all was to get people excited about additional things they can do with produce from the market. For the Opportunity Knocks staff, it was also to increase awareness.
“It’s just a good opportunity to get our name and face out there,” Asta said.