Help with pickled onions please

Tippytoes

Hi

I buy pickling onions from the market - by the sack. I buy pickling vinegar from the greengrocer - half gallon bottles. Obviously depends how many you want to do, but we love them, so we do enough jars to last a whole year.

Although I buy pre-spiced vinegar, I add additional spices and whole chillies. So I end up with numerous jars of increasing "hotness".

Onions only need 3 weeks to pickle, but the longer you leave them, the better. I'll pickle in October ready for Xmas.

Hope this helps

High_Peak_Lass

Just a word of warning......... be really careful when using old coffee jars that every trace of coffee aroma has gone, had an experience with some very interesting tasting pickles once!

viv0147

Thank you for your advice, I will leave it a while and hopefully by the time I decide to make them there will be more available and prices will be down. I have never made them but my mother used to make them, and they were gorgeous.

lunar

I thought it would be pretty simple to make some pickeld onions this year to add to peoples christmas presents. I have the kilner jars, I have pulled a huge glut of onions from the garden, But the more i read about the subject the more confused I get.

I need someone to give me a real idiots guide as to how to do it, the mad thing is that i have the book canning and preserving for dummies and it has just confused me even more.

My first hurdle is the actual jars, I have glass kilner jars with ceramic lids. the instructions tell me to wash in hot soapy water then place in a cooling oven, what temperature should this be and for how long? also does that include putting the rubber seal in the oven as well?

My next problem with the jars it that they say that as the steam leaves the jar air cant get back in and a vacume is formed, this I follow but looking at recipes for pickled onions they are cold when you put then in the jar, will the onions be properly preserved if i use these jars?

Finally if someone can give me a recipe for normal and spicy onions I would really apriciate it.

I have lots of clear sarsons pickeling vinager which is aparently already seasoned. I also have loads of herbs and spices which i can use.

The salt is confusing me, the dummies book said not to use table salt as it has anti caking stuff in but ive been looking online and i cant find salt without it at the main supermarkets.

I never thought something which sounded so simple would cause me so much confusion! Thank you in advance for any help, and an even bigger thank you if you are still reading!

WestonDave

Blimey - talk about making it difficult - I used to do this as a kid so its really not that hard.

First put your onions in the fridge for at least 24 hours - if you don't you will be literally crying with regret when you come to peel them.

The onions will be preserved fine following the salt and vinegar parts of the processes - the sterilising bit is belt and braces. I used to stick the oven on low (gm 2 ish) and put the jars in for half an hour or so. Probably best not to do the rubber seals - you could try some putting them in some Milton sterilising solution (in the baby section). You'll need to do this on the bottling evening/day not the peeling/salting day. Take them out and let them cool as the cold onions might crack the glass if you put them in really hot jars.

Peel your onions - if you peel them under water you'll avoid any more spray than is absolutely necessary and put them in a good salt solution over night. We always used table salt and never had any problems with it.

Next day rinse them off and bottle them up in your clean cooled jars, fill them with your chosen vinegar solution and leave to mature for a few months. I'm sure you can make special spicey ones with chilli etc in but normally a standard pickling vinegar will give you a pretty decent biting onion, unlike the tat they sell in the shops that is full of sugar etc. We used to get some pickling vinegar from a local shop that decanted it into plastic bottles from a bigger vat - that was good stuff, and would make your nose tingle on the first onion.

Seriously there isn't much in terms of bugs bacteria etc that can survive a good dose of heavy salt solution and then a few months in acetic acid (vinegar) so don't stress too much about it. Maybe try it simple for the gift ones but do a couple of smaller jars for yourself to experiment with other spices etc.

Pink.

Hi lunar,

These threads may help:

Help with pickled onions please

Pickled Onions/Shallots & pickled cucumber

I'll add your thread to the first link later to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

Dizzy_Ditzy

i've just peeled and salted my first lot- i have not done this since i was in school and that was a long time ago!

I got 1lb of onions, a litre of water and 50g salt. Add it all together. Put in bowl or similar. something over the top to hold it down.

In the meantime I've washed my jars to soak the labels off. Tomorrow I will rinse the onions, dry them off and jar them using 400ml vinegar and a teaspoon of sugar ( i am trying sweet ones for now, will do spicy and hot ones later in the week) I will put them away and not get them out until about a week before christmas

If I can do it, anyone can, honestly! There are too many confusing websites out there, so I chose one and stuck with it :-)

Good luck!

meritaten

eek - talk about making things complicated!
first off - use the bags of cooking salt rather than table salt. table salt has something added which makes it run freely and not clump and this is not good in pickles. (supermarkets usually hide the cooking salt on the bottom shelf! this is so that you will pick up the expensive salt at eye level.
second - the onions need to be peeled then left in the salted water overnight - use a bowl which will allow you to cover the onions with plenty of water - then throw in the recommended amount of salt - cant remember what it is offhand - but dont worry you cannot use too much salt!
the next day drain the salt off the onions and rinse them under a cold tap. leave them to drain a bit then pack them into sterilised jars. I sterilised my jars (and I am prob going to get slated for this by purists) in a baby cold water sterilising unit. I use Milton fluid. then i drain the jars thoroughly and make sure they are dry inside before packing the onions in.
cover the onions with the vinegar - you have the spiced which is nice but you can also add any of the following - mustard seeds, fennel seeds, any fresh herb which you like the flavour of such as rosemary or thyme or a bay leaf.
I like sweet pickled onions so to a large kilner jar I would add a good dessertspoon of sugar. smaller jars get a teaspoon of sugar. make sure you label the sweet ones as 'sweet'!
make sure the vinegar reaches the top of the jar (give the vinegar time to settle in the gaps and top up the jars if necessary.
then i cut a square of cling film and place over the neck of the jar and put the lid on! keep for at least a month if not six weeks before opening!

betterlife

peel onions, put onions in a large bowl which has an upside down cereal bowl in the bottom (this seperates the onions from the water that will come out from them, as i was always told the salt was used to pull all the water out of the onions, this will ensure your onions will be crunchy when pickled not soft) cover with salt, leave over night, next day quickly rinse salt off onions and pat dry. jar them up and cover with pickling vinegar (i like EDES the best i have to then hide mine as husband will start eating them within a week! i find there normally ready in about 3 weeks and will be fine for up to 3mths.

SUESMITH_2

i know you have nice kilner jars but just be careful if you use old jars and metal lids that the metal is sound otherwise it will corrode and not be nice