Turnip Pickles

Post date: Aug 02, 2012 3:46:27 AM

Here is the recipe for turnip pickles from the "NAJDA Arabic Cook Book", a very low budget (typed, mimeographed, and bound with that strange plastic binding that homemade books used in 1968, when the book was made) cookbook that I found in the rental house I lived in in Berkeley, and have used ever since...

I made these last in December 2011 - I plan to make more this year as turnip season is coming up at the farm.  Here are the comments from the time I made them:

December 5 - Since we got a whole mess of turnips in our winter vegetable share, I decided to give it a go. The turnips are soaking - I'll let you know how it turns out!

December 6 - Turnips are soaking now - and the liquid is already the appropriate fluorescent pink!

‎December 9 - 3 days in - sampled them, and found them not very pickled. Drained a little brine and added a fresh 1/4 cup vinegar and tsp salt to each jar, now they are tasting right! So if you make this, double the amount of brine in each jar (I guess I didn't pack the turnips closely enough, so the brine got diluted by the amount of water I added).

December 9 -  Did the rebrining last night - now they are perfect! I might add more beet next time to make them more lurid, but the taste is very good.

What I ultimately concluded was that it was partially the rebrining that made them taste the way I wanted, and partially getting them out of the fridge.  I think some of the souring I was looking for came from the lactobacillus having a chance to grow.  They sell these things in tubs at room temperature at the various stores on Mt Auburn street - I think they are not really intended to be refrigerated.  I did an experiment later with one jar in the fridge and another on the counter for a few days, and the one on the counter tasted better.