It’s a pickle!

Have you ever pickled cucumbers? Poles LOVE pickles! And not only pickles, we also love gherkins, marinated and – probably most of all – małosolne cucumbers!

Małosolne you can really only get in spring time, when the cucumbers are young and fresh. This season is really short, probably that’s why we all love them so much! We have to wait for so many months for them and then it’s only a couple of weeks when we can enjoy them!

Małosolne pickles are only pickled a little bit. It’s like the first stage of pickling, when the vegetable is still crispy and crunchy, but already starts to have this distinctive pickle taste. This time of year – May and June, when it’s so warm outside, these kind of cucumbers are usually ready after just 3-4 days from the moment you put them in the jar!

How to make ogórki małosolne? It’s super easy!

• 1 kg cucumbers (fresh, young, it’s worth to ask the vendor which cucumbers would be best for pickling!)
• 5 twigs of dill
• couple of cloves of garlic, peeled and cut into halves
• 15 cm piece of horseradish
• couple of leaves of currant, cherry or oak tree (they are not mandatory, but they add a nice flavour)
• 1 and 1/2 liters of water
• salt for pickling
• jars (rinsed thoroughly in boiling hot water)

1. Put cucumbers into very cold water for approx. 3 hours. Afterwards wash them carefully and put them in the jars
2. Add peeled and cut garlic cloves, peeled and cut into smaller pieces horseradish root, dill and the leaves. In one big jar you want to put layers of cucumbers and layers of additions. In smaller jars, it’s best to put cucumbers vertically and afterwards, try to push the additions in, between the cucumbers.
3. Add salty water (1 heaped tbs of salt for 1 liter of water and stir it carefully). Whole cucumbers must be covered with water, no parts sticking out! Put a kitchen cloth on the jar and secure it with the rubber band or put a screw cup on the jar, but don’t screw it too hard!
4. Leave it in a shadowed place for 3 to 5 days (depending on the room temperature). The first sign that the cucumbers are ready will be the water getting more and more turbid.

Smacznego!