I have always been a dill pickle kind of girl but this summer I’ve experimented with a couple different pickle recipes that caught my eye.  I tried out my great grandma’s bread and butter pickles, which turned out amazing.  Who knew I could like a sweet pickle too?! Then later in the summer, I made a batch of Persian Tarragon Pickles from my favorite canning cookbook: Canning for a New Generation by Liana Krissoff.

These are a refrigerator pickle which requires no cooking at all.  You simply pack the jars, mix up the brine and fill the jars.  Then you pop them in the fridge and wait a month until they are ready.

We just pulled out our first jar a few weeks ago and oh man, are they good!! We’ve eaten two jars in two weeks so when I saw some perfect end-of-season pickling cucumbers at Jungle Jim’s last week I bought them all up to make more of these spectacular pickles.

Cucumbers soaking in ice water

Fresh garlic & tarragon from the garden

Finished jars ready for the fridge

Persian Tarragon Pickles

Adapted from Canning for a New Generation

Ingredients (per quart jar)

• 2 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• 2 sprigs fresh tarragon
• 1.5 teaspoons coriander seeds
• 2 hot chilies, fresh or dried
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1/8 cup canning salt

Instructions

1. Trim the ends off your cucumbers and cut them into whatever shape you like.  If they are small, you can also leave them whole.  I usually cut mine into a variety of sizes to help with packing the jars.  Drop them into a pot of ice water until you’re ready for them.
2. Add the first four ingredients to your quart jars then cucumbers to fill.  I listed the ingredients/quart jar because I often find myself with varying quantities of cucumbers.  I usually fill them a few at a time so I can judge how many jars I’ll need for the quantity of cucumbers I have.
3. Mix together the brine ingredients in a large bowl or pot, multiplying the quantity for the number of jars you filled.  Pour brine over the cucumbers to fill the jars.
4. Screw on a lid, label and date it.
5. Place in the refrigerator and let sit for one month before enjoying.  Keep refrigerated.

I used fresh tarragon from my herb garden and heirloom garlic that I grew from Seed Savers Exchange.  I think the garlic, in particular, really enhanced the flavor because it is so much more flavor-packed than the garlic you buy at the store.  If you have access to farm fresh, heirloom garlic – use it!  Now is the time to be planting garlic for next year’s garden so perhaps this could be your motivation to plant some of your own.

Enjoy!