Our friends at Whole Foods Bowery have converted their cheese cave into a pickle palace of the highest order.   We’ll be on hand for the launch party tonight and sampling our wares, and tasting those of our friends, including McClure’s, Sourpuss and Brooklyn Brine.   We’ve made a special pickle just for the occasion… Sweet and Sassy Mixed Pickles.   Please come on down to the Brinery at Bowery… we’ll be sampling up a storm under a big poster that looks a little bit like this:

Yours truly.

And here’s the recipe for Sweet and  Sassy Mixed Pickles.

For the pickles:

3lbs kirby cucumbers
2 medium onions
2 large bell peppers (one red, one yellow if possible)
1 lb. carrots
2 oz Kosher salt
1 lb ice cubes

For the brine:

32 oz cider vinegar (5% acidity)
16 oz water
4 oz brown sugar (less if you prefer)
½ bunch lemon thyme
2 tablespoons pink peppercorns, cracked
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seed
2 teaspoons whole allspice berries, cracked
2 teaspoons coriander seeds, toasted and cracked
1 teaspoon ground fennel
1 teaspoon ground cloves
4 bay leaves

1. Rinse cucumbers in cold water.  Trim tips and slice the cucumbers into ¼-inch rounds.
2. Peel skins off of onions and slice onions into ¼ rounds, then slice the rounds into half-moons.
3. Combine the cucumbers and onions with the ice and salt and mix thoroughly.    Place in a refrigerator for at least one hour.
4. Peel the carrots and chop into ½ inch chunks.
5. Rinse the peppers and slice them in half to remove the seeds.    Cut into 1-inch squares.
6. In a large stockpot, mix together the cider vinegar, water, sugar, lemon thyme, mustard seed, fennel, cloves and bay leaves.   Bring brine to a boil and then simmer over medium heat.
7. Crack the pink peppercorns and the allspice berries using a mortar and pestle and add to the brine pot.
8. Toast the coriander seeds over medium heat, shaking frequently, until a little wisp of smoke appears, usually about two to three minutes.    Set aside.
9. Remove the bowl with the cucumbers and onions from the refrigerator and rinse the contents under cold water to remove the salt.   Place them in another bowl and mix well with the peppers, carrots and coriander seeds.
10. Pack the vegetable mixture evenly into 2 half-gallon or 4 quart jars.
11. Return the brine to a boil and pour the brine over the vegetables, making sure to completely cover them (you may have some extra brine).  Screw the lid on to the jars firmly.
12. Allow the jars to come to room temperature and then place them in a refrigerator.    The pickles will be ready to eat in 24 hours and will last for one month under refrigeration.

Notes on the vegetables: there are numerous varieties of heirloom cucumbers and kirbies that will be appropriate for this pickle.   Smaller cucumbers (1 ½ inch diameter maximum) are preferred as they will be less seedy and typically have more firm flesh.  What makes this pickle visually appealing is the play of different bright colors, which is why the red and yellow peppers are preferred to contrast the green kirby cucumbers.   If you were using yellow lemon cucumbers, you might want to substitute green bell peppers.

This recipe was adapted from one in Quick Pickles, by Chris Schlesinger, John Willoughby and Dan George.    A great book!

For more information about Rick’s Picks and to order pickles please visit rickspicksnyc.com and also check out the cookbook co-authored by founder Rick Field,  The Art of Preserving, available at our website and also amazon.com.  Another great book!

For our Eat, Drink, Local week challenge I selected OYSTERS as my featured local ingredient and KOOL GHERKS as my special pickle to pair with the ingredient.    I love the aroma and flavor of Kool Gherk brine… I take gentle sips as a digestif… and I knew it would make a great addition to a classically-styled mignonette sauce for oysters.    It’s true brine-on-brine action, with the naturally briny oysters getting a boost from the Gherk brine.   What is fun about this process is the experimenting, but you only get one chance so in my case I am recommending tweaks I’ll implement to my own recipe the next time I make it.   The “revisions” are what I’ve listed in the ingredients.     The oysters I used were Wellfleets (they were what I could get at the place I went to, and technically regional rather than local, but indisputably delicious).   I can attest to the fact that a great and cheap purchase is a high quality oyster knife.   Save yourself some puncture wounds, particularly if you are quaffing Negronis while you are shucking, as I was.

A classically-styled mignonette requires very little in the way of ingredients.

I got 18 oysters (enough for 5 folks to enjoy) and after shucking was careful to avoid spilling the liquor the oyster naturally produces.  Moist is good.    It’s advisable to make your mignonette ahead of time, ideally the day prior so the flavors can comingle properly in the fridge overnight.   But if you are working a la minute, the results can still be stellar.

Rick’s Kool Gherk Mignonette

2/3rds of a cup white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons finely-minced shallots
1 1/2 tablespoons black peppercorns
1 tablespoon Kool Gherk brine
1 Kool Gherk
1 3″ piece of fresh horseradish root (optional)

Pour the white wine vinegar into a mixing bowl.    Peel and mince enough shallots to have 3 tablespoons of finished, minced shallots (two good-sized shallots should generate enough).   If you are pressed for time or lazy, you can use a food processor to mince the shallots but it will only take a few seconds… otherwise you’ll have watery mush,   Crush the peppercorns with a mortar and pestle and add to the bowl.    Add the Kool Gherk brine.     Take one 3-4 inch Kool Gherk and mince it as finely as the shallots.   Add it to the bowl and whisk the contents.     Plate the shucked oysters on a bed of ice (a bit of seaweed makes a nice decorative touch if available) and put a small bowl of the mignonette in the center of the plate, along with a small spoon so your friends can spoon the mignonette on to the oysters.   As  an extra touch, shave some fresh horseradish with a Microplane zester so that it has the consistency of finely-grated Parmesean, and dust the oysters after applying the mignonette.

This is the best of nine not-so-great photos taken of what was a very pretty final plate. Blame the Negronis for the quality of the photography.

There’s precious little time these days for pickle experimentation, what with the pesky time-consuming issues of actually running a pickle company.   That’s why I was excited when my buddy Robert of New Amsterdam Market asked us to make something we don’t usually make for his Spring benefit.   We agreed on carrots.   And since I’d been wanting to play with Szechuan peppercorns for some time now, they became the flavor profile driver.

Each one of these tiny beauties is bursting with superstar aromatics.

Fortunately for me, Berkeley, California was in the house in the form of Cousin Richard, who is a mean chef in his own right (you haven’t been alive until you’ve had his braised artichokes).   Richard was excited about the Szech peps as you can see.

Both Cousin Richard and the Szechuan peppercorns have what they call "a good nose".

Luckily, I own two carrot peelers so Richard and I were able to work through 15 pounds of carrots lickety split.   We took the mortar and pestle to the Szech peps and gave them a churning half-grind.

Doing the grind.

We sliced some fresh garlic into wafers to give things a bit more dimension, but after that, it felt like the right move to limit the secondary notes and keep things simple.   The strong, clear flavor of the carrots and the dynamic pungency of the peppercorns is a good basis for a first pass at the idea.

It's brine time.

We processed the jars minimally (6 minutes) to keep the crispy crunch of the carrots.  The aroma of the brine was simply intoxicating.  In their finished form, the carrots were remarkably still carrot-like.  The brine had a surprisingly subtle impact.   And yet the light touch still left a tingle on the tongue.    I think a cocktail application is the next step.

Oysters all around.

Our good friend and market visionary Robert LaValva is hosting another smorgasbord/fundraiser on April 9 to benefit his New Amsterdam Market.  We’ve been working with Robert since year one of the Market and his benefit parties are not only a worthy expenditure but a hoot.   This time, he’s asked us to roll up our sleeves and make something special for the event.  We concluded it would be fun to do a pickled carrot.   We agreed it should be aromatic and spicy.   And I have a secret agenda… I’ve been looking for a reason to fool around with Szechuan Peppercorns.   I see great things in the future for this pickle.

These ingenues and their friends are about to meet some interesting peppercorns from Szechuan Province.

I’ll keep you posted when I do the recipe test next week.     You can get tickets to the event here.