Alum is a short-form word for an ingredient otherwise known as “potassium aluminum sulfate.” Sold in crystals, there are both food and commercial grades; the food grade is available at some pharmacies. Alum was called for in older pickling recipes to give pickles a good, crisp crunch and helped ensure that they didn’t just come…
Canning funnels are designed to rest securely in the mouths of canning jars. They allow an easy, precise flow of semi-solid or solid food stuffs through into the jar while keeping the rim and neck of the jar clean.
Canning tongs are used to put filled preserving jars into canners, and remove them after heat processing. They are specially designed to be able to fit around the wide necks of preserving jars, and grip them enough to lift them securely.
Curing, whether done to meat or olives, means treating something with salt to help preserve it. When curing meat or fish, the salt draws the moisture out, leaving bacteria less moisture to grow on. It also penetrates the meat, making an inhospitable environment for bacteria. Curing must be done in coolish places or the meat…
Funnels are tools used to transfer food items into containers with narrow tops, usually for storage. The purpose of the funnel is to minimize spillage and wastage during transfer of the food item.
The chemical lime in the form of Calcium Hydroxide (aka Edible Lime, Hydrated Lime, CaH2O2) is used in some food processing, and has been for millennia.Lime (in the form of Calcium Hydroxide) is used in South America in processing corn. Corn is soaked in water to which Calcium Hydroxide has been added. The corn swells,…
Nitrite Pickling Salt is ordinary salt with .4% of Sodium Nitrite (NaNO²) added. Generally, the salt used is non-iodized, but some brands might have iodine in them. Nitrite Pickling Salt helps to fix colour, and preserve food. It also helps protect against botulism. When used, the nitrite forms into nitric oxide, which is the colour…
Parboil is to boil a food just until it is partially done. What “partially done” means depends on the food item, and the use it will be put to in a given recipe. It generally implies a longer cooking time than parblanching or blanching, though sometimes the words are used interchangeably, and less of a…
Pickle Juice © Denzil Green Pickle Juice is juice that has been used to pickle a food item. Though it’s usually presumed to be juice that cucumbers in one form or another were pickled in, that’s not strictly true: the juice can be from beets, pickled peppers, etc.. It can be re-used to make pickled…
The word “pickled” in English is an adjective used to describe a food item which has been preserved through pickling. See pickling for a full discussion. Language Notes For the sake of thoroughness, we point out that “pickled” can also be used to refer to someone who has had several drinks too many.
Pickling is a preserving process that can be applied to vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, fruit and even nuts. It also adds flavour to the item being preserved, and can transform one food item, such as cucumbers, into another, such as “pickles.” The following discussion of pickling provides general guidelines only, and is only a broad…
Pickling Cucumbers © Denzil Green Pickling is the only practical way to preserve cucumbers. They don’t freeze or dry well. Pickling cucumbers, though, are the only kind of cucumbers that won’t go mushy when canned, because they start off really firm and crisp. Regular cucumbers for fresh eating are called, in contrast, “slicers.” You can…
Pickling lime is calcium hydroxide. It’s also called “food-grade lime”, because in making the calcium hydroxide the processors make sure that the process remains pure and doesn’t introduce anything untoward (e.g. it’s not done in rusty old bins.) Pickling lime helps to improve the firmness of pickles by introducing calcium that reinforces the pectin in…
Pickling Salt is a very fine grained pure food-grade salt used in pickling. It is as fine as table salt — in fact, it is table salt, but without any additives. Additives in table salt, such as iodine or anti-caking agents, would, if used in pickling, turn pickles brown and make the brine go cloudy. The…
Preserves © Denzil GreenPreserves are vegetables or fruit that are preserved, either whole or in uniformly-sized distinguishable pieces, usually in a sealed jar or tin, to extend their storage life. Many people’s grandmothers used to have a cellar of preserves, on which there were shelves of jars containing pickles, relishes, pickled peppers, chutneys, jams, jellies…
There are several historical techniques for preserving whole shell eggs, raw and uncooked, without refrigeration. Modern techniques include refrigeration, freezing and dehydration. Refrigerating eggs Refrigeration is the default modern means of extending the storage life of eggs. In North America, all eggs are refrigerated. In Europe, however, the default is to store them out of…
A pressure cooker is a pot to cook food in under pressure. The presence of pressure can reduce both the cooking time and the energy used to cook something by as much as 50%.
Sauerkraut is made from shredded cabbage that is fermented and pickled in a brine of salt and cabbage juice. The juice and brine come about through how it is made: layers of cabbage with alternating layers of salt, which is then pressed down, squeezing juices out of the cabbage. Varieties include Bavarian (milder flavour, with…
Sterilizing jars can be a necessary procedure for preserving food in jars. It helps ensure the destruction of microbes that could either degrade the food, or render the food dangerous to eat, or both. Modern lab research has shown that it is not necessary to sterilize: if you will be using a pressure canner to…
White Vinegar © Denzil Green White vinegar can be a generic term for any vinegar which is clear or light yellow in colour. In North America, however, it usually means white distilled vinegar. All throughout North America, this is the one vinegar that you can count on finding in the cupboard. It is one of…
