The other night me and my husband were catching up with the rest of the world via our mobile devices. Steve showed me a picture of pickled wild garlic buds posted by huntergathercook.com on twitter we both agreed what brilliant idea this was. Especially as we have lots of Wild garlic growing in the hedgerows around our village.
So when the Beagle and I went for our morning walk I made sure to collect enough wild garlic flower buds for pickling.
Pickling uses the preservative qualities of salt and vinegar which combined create an environment which inhibits bacteria. To add flavor to your pickling liquid you can infuse it with herbs, spices and even add honey or sugar to sweeten the flavor a little.
The Ingredients I used for pickling the wild garlic flower buds were: Cider Vinegar – Sea Salt – Honey – Rosemary – Cardamom Pods.
Working out how many jars you need:
Weigh your thoroughly washed and drained vegetable or what ever else you are pickling and make a note of the weight.
Place one of the jars you are using on your scales and set to zero. Then pack it with the vegetable you want to pickle and make a note of the weight. Now divide the total wight by the weight in the jar and hey presto you know how many jars you need.
Working out how much pickling liquid you need:
To work out how much cider you need poor enough to cover the vegetables/buds by 1 cm into the jar ,this is a little tricky with the buds as the have a tendency to float.
Place a sauce pan on the scales set to zero and pour the liquid from the jar into the sauce pan to weigh. Multiply this weight measurement by the amount of jars needed and add more cider to the pan until the desired weight has been reached. Now you need to add ten percent salt so if you have 500 g vinegar you will need 50 g of salt.
It’s important to sterilize your jars after giving them a good wash with soapy water. I like placing them on a tray in the oven for 20 min or until your ready at 140 degrees / gas mark 1.
Now all that’s left to do is to heat the vinegar and salt without boiling it and adding some honey, rosemary and a few green cardamom pods to flavor. And Finally pour the pickling liquid over the wild garlic flower buds secure lids and you will have beautiful pickled wild garlic buds to enjoy for months to come.
I’m hoping they will make a good alternative to shop bought garlic until I can harvest my own.
