Czechs love pickle vegetables! One of the most common ones is pickled cucumbers which are a delicious side dish.
Pickled cucumbers are a star among pickled vegetables and many households plant cucumbers and preserve them in this way for winter. They are also a very common item in stores, a popular local brand from the city of Znojmo is called Znojmia, although many argue that after getting into foreign hands, the product doesn’t taste as good as it used to. An so, many people prefer to make them at home and there’s no wonder they are so popular. Their crunchiness combined with slightly acidic taste make them a great side dish to snitzel or sekaná.
You will need a sterilizing pot/canner or any pot large enough to fit several jars. In my opinion, investing into a proper pot is worth it if you want to can your food regularly. If this is your first time and you’re not sure, just try with any large pot you have at home. If you’re thinking of purchasing a canner, there are many of them, some of them very modern with buttons and displays, however, in this case I would go with plain and simple. I am lucky to have a 2-generation-old steam canner:
And I would recommend purchasing something like this canner. It’s simple and easy to use. There’s no electronics that could break and stop working and it comes with a handy set of tools.
There are powder mixtures you can buy to make the pickle solution but I prefer to make it from scratch. I often use this book for pickle recipes, however, we have our family recipe for the cucumbers and I’d like to share it with you.
And a little linguistics before we start. Pickled cucumbers have several names in Czech. Nakládané okurky means literally “pickled cucumbers” and you could say also okurky nakládačky which is a bit more colloquial. Sterilované okurky means “sterilized cucumbers”.
Table of Contents
Pickled Cucumbers – Recipe
Ingredients
- cucumbers – any size that fit into your jars but under 10 cm are better than larger
- pieces of dill – leaves, blossoms, young stems
- bay leaf
- mustard seed
- allspice
- whole black pepper
- whole cloves
- optional: carrot, onion, sliced
Solution – 1 liter/33.8 oz
- 0,7 l/23.7 oz of water
- 25 g/0.9 oz of salt
- 80 g/2.8 oz of sugar
- 0,25 l/8.5 oz of 8 % vinegar
Tools
- glass jars with lids
- sterilizing pot/canner – large pot with thermometer is the best but you can use any pot into which your jar fit + external thermometer
- jar lifter – it’s optional but it’s a big help
How to make Pickled Cucumbers
Prepare jars
Sterilize the jars and lids. You can clean them in the dishwasher or pour boiling water in them. Don’t dry them with a towel, just pour the water out and you can use them. Prepare several jars.
Fill jars
Place some chopped dill at the bottom, add a bay leaf, a few mustard seeds, 1 allspice, 2 black peppers and a clove. Fill the jar with whole cucumbers and add one or two slices of onion and three slices of tomato
Solution
Heat the water to about 80°C/176°F and stir in salt and sugar. Stop the heat and add vinegar, stir well.
Pour the solution into the jars so that everything is in liquid. Screw the lids on tight.
Sterilize
If you don’t have pot for sterilizing
Prepare any large pot, place your jars inside and fill the pot with water so that it covers the lids a little. Heat up the water to 85°C/185°F and sterilize at this temperature for 25 minutes.
In a pot for sterilizing
Pout some water at the bottom, place your jars inside, cover with lid and heat up the water to boil and create vapor. Watch the thermometer and correct heat to reach 85°C/185°F. Sterilize for 25 minutes.
Can I just let the water boil/let the temperature rise? No, you cannot. Boiling water will boil the cucumbers, they will be bland, soft and not crunchy at all. If the temperature rises, just turn the heat down and try to keep it around the recommended 85°C/185°F.
After the sterilizing is done, there are several things you can do to help the lid “latch on” properly. One is turning the jars upside down until they cool down completely. The other trick is to place an ice cube on each lid.
You can even leave the jars in the canner to cool down, especially if you’re using a steam canner. If your jars are in hot water and you don’t have a jar lifter and you want to take the jars out and turn them upside down, carefully pour some of the water out of the pot and then take the jars out using kitchen towels or gloves.
Storage
Keep the pickled cucumbers in dark and rather cold, if you have such a place. A cold cellar is ideal but you can keep them also in your pantry in the kitchen. Don’t forget to write the year on the jar and if you experience with different types of brine and pickle, also write which one is in each specific jar.
