It’s fermented gherkins season. You don’t need much to make the best ones

Fermented gherkins are literally a treasure not to be missed. You can only make them right now, during cucumber season. Worried you might not get it right? Forget about that. Absolutely anyone can make proper pickled cucumbers. How? It’s simple. In the following lines, we’ll let you in on how we made them. It certainly wasn’t rocket science. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The right cucumbers as a base

Without a doubt. Ideally, you’d have your own overgrown pickling cucumbers, but you can also buy the right ones at the market. That’s what we did. We went out to buy them in the morning and paid just under 40 crowns per kilogram. We also needed some other ingredients. Which ones?

– roughly 1.8 kg of gherkins,

– water,

– salt,

– vine leaves,

– sour cherry leaves,

– dill,

– a few cloves of garlic,

– an onion.

Naturally, we couldn’t do without the right jar. We use a classic large preserving jar.

Cucumbers: Photo Radek Stepan 

How to make fermented gherkins step by step

Nothing too fiddly. First of all, wash the gherkins thoroughly. Once we’d managed that, we gradually started packing them into the jar. They should be pressed down firmly, but not so hard that they break. We added vine leaves, dill, onion, sour cherry leaves and a few cloves of garlic. We created layers directly from the individual ingredients. Finally, we added the brine. We made this quite simply: two tablespoons of salt per litre of water.

Tip: Homemade pickled cucumbers without E numbers. We’ve got a simple recipe.

Now all that’s left is to wait

Once we’d filled the jar and poured in the brine, we covered it with the lid, but didn’t screw it on tightly. This is because air needs to be able to escape. The water level will rise slightly as some of the liquid escapes. You should wait for about 3 weeks. We couldn’t resist, though, and tasted them after just a week. Fermented gherkins are fantastic. You can see for yourself in the pictures.

Sources: Author

Fermented gherkins: Photo and photogallery: Radek Stepan