Piccalilli
Make this delicious winter ferment to add to sandwiches and soup with our easy recipe for piccalilli.
Published: January 13, 2020 at 12:37 pm
Ingredients
- 500g Cauliflower
- 2 Carrots
- 1 Courgette (avoid big seeds if there are any; use firm flesh)
- A Handful of green beans
- Red/yellow/green peppers (half of each)
- ½ Leek
- 2% sea salt
- 20g Rice flour
- 80g Water
- 10g Honey
- 2tsp English mustard powder
- 2tsp Turmeric
- 1tsp Coriander seeds
- ½tsp Fenugreek
- 1tsp Nigella seeds
- 1tsp Cumin seeds
Method
Step 1
Chop the vegetables into small pieces about 1.5cm square. Break the cauliflower into small florets and cut up any thick pieces of cauliflower stem. Rinse in a colander.
Step 2
Weigh the vegetables. Calculate 2% salt. So if you have 754g of vegetables, you will need 2/100 x 754g = 15g of salt.
Step 3
Add the salt to the vegetables and mix together gently so you don’t break up the cauliflower florets, then set aside. The salt will begin to draw water out of the vegetables, which will help to keep them crispy.
Step 4
Boil the rice flour, honey and water together in a saucepan until you have a thick gloopy sauce. Leave to cool.
Step 5
Make up the spice mix.
Step 6
Add the cooled sauce and the spice mix to the vegetables and mix with a wooden spoon or your hands (if you don’t mind being temporarily turmeric-coloured).
Step 7
Pack the piccalilli mixture into your chosen jar, leaving about 4cm of headroom, eliminating air pockets as you go. Alternatively, use a ziplock bag.
Step 8
As there is no brine here, it’s difficult to submerge the vegetables as such. For this short fermentation, you can place either a bag of brine in the jar, or a piece of greaseproof paper and a weight on top. There is little risk of mould, as the spices have their own antibacterial and antifungal properties.
Step 9
Ferment for 4–5 days at room temperature. Pockets of carbon dioxide will form, but try to resist opening the jar until the time is up. After five days, smell and taste the piccalilli before refrigerating. You can leave it in the fridge to develop its flavour for several more days.
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Polly Webster
