Sunday 15 March 2009

Pickled Cucumber

Possibly not the best photo to showcase the pickled cucumber, but it can look boring on it's own. Wafer-thin cucumber interlaced with white onion, but that's pretty much it.

I recently went to Borough Market (on a less hectic Friday afternoon) and was rather taken by the terrine I saw. It sounded amazing, as it was with foie gras, pork, speck and black truffle. I visibly dribbled over it, and only had the merest of eyebrow raises when my one slice came to almost £6.

To accompany this rather extravagant purchase, I thought some sort of pickle or chutney would work well. Glancing in my fridge, a lonely cucumber and some slightly wilted dill only confirmed that pickling was the way forward.

Pickled Cucumber

Roughly 6 servings, depending how much of a pickle fiend you are

1 cucumber

1 small white onion

50gr caster sugar

100ml cider vinegar

6gr salt

3 tbsp dill

In a small saucepan, bring the vinegar, salt and sugar slowly to the boil and then take off the heat. Slice the cucumber as thinly as possible (I used my box grater), slice the onion into semi circles also as thinly as possible and to the cooled vinegar / sugar / salt solution and leave for 24 hours.

The pickled provided a wonderfully tart contrast to the extremely rich terrine. It was mighty tasty, but I found it rather overpriced for what it was. The pickled cucumber was great with smoked salmon, but also potted shrimps and even in burgers.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mmmmmm! I am a pickle fiend! I like the thought of having it with some terrine.

I like this pickle Asian style - lime juice or rice vinegar, no dill, but sliced chilies - mmm mmm!

William Leigh said...

Love pickled cucumbers, a little smoked trout...mmm. Had fantastic ones in the Hand & Flowers pub. Triffic.

Anonymous said...

I do love pickled cucumber! Especially with smoked salmon. I don't add dill to mine as I am not a fan of it's strong flavour, but I'll try adding the onion next time. Delicious!

Niamh

Anonymous said...

Generally I'm not a fan of pickled things but I do like pickled cucumbers, never tried with onion though. I could really eat that plate.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah bring on the PICKLES! You know I share the pickle love. They cukes look ace. I must say you made a lot more effort eating that terrine, i wish I'd done that - made a little accompaniment. I also found the terrine overpriced, it was like all those lush ingredients took away the flavour really. I thought it was a bit disappointing.