Mustard Pickles

In our house growing up there was always a jar of mustard pickles in the fridge, and they were always paired with both baked beans and meat pie, which were both something my mom made regularly. A few years ago I decided to make my own, and I ended up being extremely pleased with the results. The main veggies to put in there are cucumbers, onions and cauliflower, but you can also put in stuff like rutabaga, turnip, radish, and carrots. This time around it is just the latter.

After you cut up your cucumbers and onions you have to salt them and leave them over night, to draw as much moisture as possible out of them. I just put them into a food grade bucket and leave them on the side step since it is cool enough at night this time of year that it is about fridge temperature. Then the next day you squeeze as much moisture as you can out of them - either by hand or with a fruit press like we have - and continue on with your recipe.

Here are your salted veggies

• 6 litres cut up cucumbers. I give them a good wash trim the ends, but do not peel them.
• 3 to 4 litres cut up onions
• 3/4 cup pickling salt

Put them in a covered bucket and leave them overnight. Then squeeze out as much moisture as possible. This can get pretty chilly doing it by hand - been there, done that.

Put it all into a large pot - you'll need at least 10 litre. Now add

• 3 litres cauliflower flowerettes
• 2 to 3 litres of any mixture of carrots, turnip, rutabags, radish

Now you have to make your sauce. In a small saucepan mix

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup cold water
• 6 tsp mustard powder
• 2 tsp ginger
• 2 tsp tumeric
• 1 tsp coarse/pickling salt

Whisk it until it is uniform paste

In a larger 5 to 6 litre pot, mix :

• 6 cups vinegear
• 5 cups sugar

Dissolve the sugar, then mix in your spice paste. Add this all to the large pot of veggies and slowly bring it all up to a boil. Simmer gently for 5 minutes or so until the cauliflower and other hard veggies are just slightly tender (you still want them mostly firm).

When you fill your jars, you want to do so with just the veggies first, leaving the sauce in the pot. Once full, you then add the required amount of sauce for your fill level.

I process 5 minutes at 15 psi and then leave the canner closed for at least 5 hours to come down to temperature. I think these can be done in a boiling water bath if you use 7% "canning" vinegar, but check your book to be sure.