Pickling onions help please

bubbs

Hi,
I would like to pickle some onions, does anyone just use Malt vinegar or alwyas pickling vinegar?
I have had a look online and says malt, warm with honey in and pour over hot, i always thought in my mind cold liquid:cool:
Any advice welcome please

[Deleted User]

Hi there Bubbs, I always use cold malt vinegar to pickle onions but I do add a teaspoon of sugar to it in the jar as we like sweet pickled onions and sometimes I add in a few dried chillies too as He Who Knows likes onions with a kick! If you're planning to make pickled onions for christmas be aware that you normally have to keep the onions for 3 months after pickling before you use them or the flavour isn't there. You can however make a very quick version of pickled onions by slicing up a mild spanish onion and covering it with white vinegar and adding in a teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt. Leave it overnight to pickle and you can use that straight away, it's nice with cold meats or cheeses, hope that's useful, Lyn x.

RAS

Depends what you want, really.

You could just use malt vinegar, you can add some sweetner, you can add some spices if you like the taste.

You can warm the vinegar to help infuse the spices, and then cool.

You can leave the spices in the jar or strain them out.

I tend to make some sweetish and some with spices and a bit of chilli.

bubbs

Hello and thanks
No not particularly for xmas, i had a morrisons voucher so thought i would try them

bubbs

Thanks Ras, just normal pickled onions:rotfl:

Butterfly_Brain

You could always cheat and use ready made pickling vinegar

bubbs

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

You could always cheat and use ready made pickling vinegar

Thanks knew someone would know here:T

meritaten

yes, but 'proper pickling vinegar' is far more expensive than your bog standard malt vinegar. and the bog standard is really all that is needed. you don't need spices and seeds for pickled onions - unless you really want them. and its cheaper to add your own if you have them in your store cupboard.

Ken68

I've just done this with red cabbage....malt vinegar from Lidl 21pence 5%,cheapest I could find, Sains twice the price.
Warmed it up added some spice, cinnamon ,chilli powder, pepper...the only jars I had were small ex mustard, so ideal one/two portions.
Got the recipe from BBC Food.

Farway

I just use bog standard malt vinegar, like smart price etc,

I have used the Sarson's pickling vinegar, but I only really needed the jars at the time

PS, I do not buy "pickling onions" just get the Smartprice or whatever budge smaller onions are, there is no difference except size

Evil_Olive

I don't bother with special pickling vinegar as it's more expensive. Unless you buy a ready spiced one, the only difference is that it's stronger/more concentrated (6% acidity) than ordinary vinegar but ordinary strength (5%) does fine in my experience. I also find the spices in the ready spiced ones a bit 'weedy' and not to my taste - and it's cheaper to add your own custom mix. I do insist on using proper brewed malt vinegar though as it tastes totally different to the artificial stuff.

Don't pour hot vinegar over the onions - they will pickle quicker but will be mushy, not crisp. Pour it over cold.

Even 'bog standard' pickled onions usually have spices of some kind infused into the vinegar unless they are the very cheap kind, but these don't taste the same. I use whole mustard, coriander and black peppercorn seeds, whole bayleaves and whole dried chillies if I want them hot (I don't like 'em sweet). I sometimes put a whole clove or two in too. I just boil the vinegar with the spices in for 10 minutes, funnel it back into the bottle and let it cool completely before using. I leave the seeds/chillies/bayleaves etc in as they look nice in the jar and carry on infusing while the onions are pickling.

A lot of recipes will tell you to blanch the onions, or soak them in salt water for 24 hours first, to use special jars, specially sterilise the jars etc. but I've found all this totally unnecessary - I just peel 'em, jam them into an old mayonnaise jar that's been put through the dishwasher, pour over the vinegar until the onions are covered, and screw the top back on. Never had any problems.

They tend to be nicest after pickling for between 3 and 9 months, any shorter and the onions can still be raw in the middle, longer and they start to lose a little flavour (although they don't go 'off' - I've eaten them after 4 or 5 years before).

Around Christmas, supermarkets sell onions labelled specially for pickling at an inflated price. Don't be fooled - there's nothing different about them but the size. Instead, look out for Tesco Everyday Value and Asda SmartPrice onions - they are often really tiny and just the right size for pickling. Although I did notice that last year Asda's smartprice onions suddenly got much bigger as the Christmas season started - the BarStewards!

If you can't be bothered, and have money to burn, the only shop-bought pickled onions I've ever found that taste homemade are a brand called 'Garners Old Fashioned Pickled Onions', but they are pricey.
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=251776273

Last year I made a load of jars as Xmas presents - printed up personalised labels on the computer and tied squares of gingham around the lid with ribbon. They went down really well - I've been ordered to do the same again this year