Title: Cucumbers (Gherkins) Pickled with Toasted Bread
Categories: Preserve Salad Vegetable Hungarian Pickle
Yield: 6 Servings

AMERICAN MEASUREMENTS
4	lb	Gherkins (ridge cucumbers)
5	oz	Bread (made with yeast)
2/3	oz	Pepper
1 1/2	oz	Salt
40	fl	Water
		Dill
1		Garlic clove
3		Bay leaves
EUROPEAN MEASUREMENTS
2	kg	Gherkins; pickling cucumbers
150	g	Bread (made with yeast)
20	g	Pepper
45	g	Salt
1200	ml	Water
		Dill
1		Garlic clove
3		Bay leaves

Take a glass or earthenware jar with a suitable capacity. Toast thinly sliced bread, cut off the ends of the cucumbers, and taste them lest any bitter ones be among them. Then pierce them all over the surface with a sharp knife. Boil salt in water and let this brine cool. Lay some slices of the toasted bread in the bottom of the glass or jar and put in half the cucumbers if possible in an upright position. Put another layer of toasted bread on them and then the rest of the cucumbers in the same way. Cover with what is left of the toast. The peppercorns, bay leaves some dill (fresh if possible) and a clove of garlic (crushed) should be sprinkled among the cucumbers. Pour the cold brine over the cucumbers till it covers the top slices of toast. Cover the glass or jar with a saucer and set it in a very warm place, in daytime in the sun, to ferment. Let the cucumbers ferment for 5 or 6 days till they lose their bright green colour and turn yellowish green and glassy looking. When the cucumbers are sufficiently fermented, take them out of the glass, draw off the liquor, return the cucumbers to the glass and strain the marinade over them, keeping back the rest of the ingredients. Cool them on ice. Serve very cold peeled or with the skin on with some crushed ice round them and a little of the marinade poured over them. If well cooled, the liquor is a very refreshing drink.

Recipe Karoly Gundel "Hungarian Cookery Book" MMed IMH Georges' Home BBS 2:323/4.4

From: Ian Hoare Date: 22 Jan 97 National Cooking Echo Ä

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