This recipe works with cucumbers, carrots, cauliflower, or most other vegetables. I'm using watermelon rind, but feel free to substitute something else.
- Rind from one watermelon, cleaned, skin removed, cut into planks (see instructions)
- 1tbsp coriander seed
- 1tsp whole black peppercorns
- 3 cloves
- 3 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
- 1 small bunch fresh dill
- Fine sea salt, non-iodized (see notes)
- 1-3 hot dried or fresh chiles, optional
- 1L/1Q sanitized jar, preferably with an airlock lid + fermentation weight (see notes)
- Another sterile container (see notes)
- A scale that weighs in grams with a tare function
Set your jar on your scale and tare it to 0. Add everything but the watermelon rind to your jar. Then add the watermelon rind until you have about 5cm/2inch of head space. Fill the jar with water to this point. Take note of the weight.
Measure out enough salt to equal 2.5% of the weight of your ingredients plus water - so if you ingredients plus water weighs 1000g, you will want 25g of salt. Add this to your second container, then pour out some or all of your water into the second container and stir to dissolve the salt. Pour the salt and water mixture back into your fermentation jar. Place your fermentation weight on top, then put on your lid with airlock.
Keep the jar somewhere room temperature for about a week. You'll see the contents change color (the garlic may take on a blueish color - this is just the garlic reacting to the acidity building up in the liquid, and is perfectly OK). The pickles will be ready in about a week. Keep in the refrigerator and they should last at least a few months.
NOTES: The airlock lid is used to allow gases to escape during fermentation. If you don't have one, you can "burp" the pickles twice a day (open the lid and close it) to release the gases instead. The fermentation weight is used to keep the contents of the jar submerged in the water. If you don't have a fermentation weight, a small plastic bag filled with water or salt will work instead.
Worried about the stuff poking up out of the water. That's a recipe for food poisoning.
Keep your pickles submerged, y'all.
Good point. I did specify to use a fermentation weight in my instructions. I personally remove the weight after the pickles are fermented because I feel that the pickles have become acidic and salty enough to stave off anything that could be an issue. Of course, if you are more comfortable with keeping the weight in there then definitely do so!