NINETEEN YEARS AGO ALMOST TO THE DAY, I ate pickles for breakfast with lovely Dan Koshansky, a retired railroad conductor and an organic gardener in suburban Long Island. I was garden editor at Newsday newspaper then, and the beat included many a recipe tasting at harvest time. It’s how I learned to garden, and to cook from the garden: from people like Dan. Today, on our second of a series of weekly Thursday Food Fests in collaboration with Everyday Food’s Dinner Tonight blog, I want to share his recipe with you. Enjoy.
Dan Koshansky’s Refrigerator Pickles were a hand-me-down recipe from his mother. And they couldn’t be simpler. Those in the photo (top) are from a batch I made many years ago (photo by Kit Latham).
The recipe:
Wash jars: Run gallon canning jars through the dishwasher or wash thoroughly (smaller jars can be used if desired).
Prepare your brine: To each quart of water that has been boiled and brought to room temperature, add ¾ cup of distilled white vinegar and 4 Tablespoons Kosher salt (Dan would say “heaping Tablespoons”). Estimate how many quarts to make depending on how many jars you will pack with pickles. Note: Do not use reactive pots (like aluminum) for making brine. Stick with stainless and glass equipment for pickling tasks.
Wash and pack small cukes (or green tomatoes or peppers) into clean glass jars, into which fresh dill has been layered on the bottom first.
Add 1 Tablespoon of pickling spice and lots of chopped garlic. (Trust me, I can still recall the garlic-for-breakfast experience. Up to you how much. And frankly I never chop it, as you can see in the photo. Creative license!)
Add a dash of crushed red pepper flakes, or 1-2 small hot red peppers slitted open lengthwise, plus more fresh dill. I love having the flowerheads from a variety like ‘Mammoth,’ instead of just the foliage of ‘Fernleaf’ for this task, but you’ll want plenty of both.
Cover with plastic wrap and let stand out until soured, perhaps a couple of days, then refrigerate with lids on.
I think of these unprocessed pickles as a seasonal treat, So I make enough for a few months only. If you want to store pickles all year, use a recipe that calls for water-bath processing (meaning vacuum-sealed lids). It’s not that refrigerator pickles go bad, but they lose that special quality. It’s the crispy freshness that makes Dan Koshansky’s Refrigerator Pickles so fantastic, a real rite of the harvest season, so enjoy them summer-into-fall and then (as gardeners know how to by necessity) start looking forward to next year.
___________
HOW THIS CROSS-BLOG FOOD FEST WORKS:
Now go visit Deb and the Everyday Food folks to get yourself a good hearty zucchini entree or something, but not before you leave a tip or recipe behind here (or a link to your best food-gardening tip or recipe, if you’re a blogger). Thanks for attending our second weekly Food Fest…see you next Thursday for Beans (and Aug. 14 for Tomatoes…and…).
Related posts:
- food fest 3: a hill of better beans HAVING GRO
- apples+green tomatoes=gooey mincemeat I HAVE A C
- your 12 favorites from our first 6 months! THE FROGBO
- harvest bounty: to stash, or savor? ‘YOU
- food fest 10: can i eat these mystery pears? THIS WEEK
Enjoy this feature? Don't miss anything at A Way to Garden. Sign up for Margaret's new email newsletter, and subscribe to our RSS feed.
I WAS SO BLESSED TO visit and document many of the nation’s finest homemade gardens for 15 years for ‘Martha Stewart Living,’ first as garden editor and then as editorial director. The places we were proud to publish included my own upstate New York home. Take a tour of 
{ 54 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
I realize this post is last year, but I just read it and got inspired. My pickles are in the frig. I’m alrealy harvesting cucumbers here in California.
Thanks for the recipe!
Welcome, Debbie. Yes, a year-old p[ost but a decades-old recipe…and good as when it was first developed, I suspect. I make them every year. Glad to hear the recipe was pleasing. See you again soon!
Just used this recipe - my kids are so excited! Why cover with plastic the first couple of days instead of putting on the lids, out of curiousity?
Welcome, Heidi. You know, I don’t think I know the answer. I just always follow Dan’s original advice, and so far so good, all these years…just like his mama used to make. Glad your kids are getting the treat of participating. Aren’t the packed jars gorgeous? See you soon again.
← Previous Comments