It’s funny how food trends come and go. One moment it’s the humble burger, all slutted up and pimped out with juicy, thick meat lovingly quarter-pounded between two perfectly formed brioche buns, the next it’s corn chips and burritos smuggled to our shores like some kind of fandangle new designer crack cocaine from Central America. These food trends come on fast like mescaline and our nation of food junkies seem to have such a thirst for the next experience that when a ‘new’ joint peddling some retro dish we’d forgotten about opens with the backing of a PR agency klaxon, we will wait patiently in line, sober for hours, to sample foods that previously only got attention in that drunken time warp between “I’m going home” and “honey, I’m home”.
So too, it seems, is the case with pickling. Lately, everyone is doing it. Home pickling kits are selling like hot cakes on Amazon as people discover new urban hobbies such as home brewing, sourdough bread baking and kombucha fermentation. We are never ones to shy away from a free ride on a bandwagon, so we threw our sombrero’s into the proverbial ring, Root + Bone style. Now sure, there are a couple of fine pickle recipes below, well actually just the one recipe could be called fine, but after a trip to Ridley Rd market in Hackney, we found a few things to play with that we didn’t know could be pickled. Or eaten, for that matter.
6 eggs
300ml supermarket-bought pickling vinegar
200ml water
3 chicken feet for decoration
1 Kilner jar
1. In a pot of boiling water, gently place the eggs and cook on a rolling boil for 8 minutes, remove from the water and when cool enough to handle, peel off the shells. Meanwhile, in a separate pot of boiling water, cook the chicken feet for about 15 minutes or until just tender. Finally, in a third pot, bring the vinegar and water to a boil. Allow to cool a little then place the peeled eggs and chicken feet into a jar and pour over the pickling brine. Seal the jar and leave it in a cool dark place for about 2 weeks. You can eat the feet, but trust us, they make better decorations than they do snacks.
Pickled Chicken Parts
1 cucumber
30g salt
20g coriander seeds
20g toasted sesame seeds
20g black mustard seeds
1 spring onion, sliced
40g sugar
100ml white wine vinegar
A squeeze of lemon juice
1 Kilner Jar
1. Sterilise the jar by either running through a hot cycle in the dishwasher or place upturned on an oven rack in a 140°C preheated oven for 20 minutes. Don’t forget to remove the rubber seal if you use the oven.
2. Cut the cucumber lengthways and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Slice thinly and sprinkle with the salt and mix thoroughly. Let stand for an hour so the salt draws out all the excess moisture. Rinse the salt off the cucumbers thoroughly under running water. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and tip into the jar. Feel free to add other spices at this point such as chillis or star anise.
