Ogórki małosolne: crisp Polish half-sour pickles, ready in two days
Small pickling cucumbers, flowering dill, garlic, horseradish and a brine of one tablespoon of salt per litre. Two days at room temperature and they are half-sours; a week more and they are fully soured. Horseradish and a soak in cold water are what keep them crunchy.
Step by step
0 / 6 doneSoak the cucumbers
Wash the cucumbers, trim the ends and cover with cold water for an hour. Rehydrated cucumbers stay firm; limp ones make soft pickles.
Ingredients: 1500 g pickling cucumbers · 4 pcs flowering dill heads with stalks · 6 cloves garlic · 1 pcs horseradish root
TipChoose firm cucumbers with pronounced bumps and no yellow patches. Large ones with soft centres turn hollow.
An hour in cold waterPrepare the aromatics
Rinse the dill, peel and lightly crush the garlic, peel the horseradish and cut into slices or batons.
Dill, garlic, horseradish: that is all it takesMake the brine
Bring the water to the boil with the salt, stirring until dissolved. Leave to cool to lukewarm. Boiling brine speeds things up but costs crunch; in cold brine they ferment more slowly.
Ingredients: 1500 ml water · 1½ tbsp non-iodised rock salt
TipAnti-caking agents cloud the brine and iodised salt can darken the cucumbers. Plain rock salt is best.
A tablespoon of salt per litre, dissolvedPack the jar
Put some of the dill, garlic and horseradish in the bottom of a jar or crock. Pack the cucumbers tightly, upright, layering in the rest of the aromatics. A dill head on top.
Tight and upright, aromatics betweenPour and weigh down
Pour in the lukewarm brine so the cucumbers are completely covered. Weigh them down with a small saucer so they don't float. Cover loosely with a cloth; don't seal tightly, fermentation makes gas.
Ingredients: 1500 ml water · 1½ tbsp non-iodised rock salt
Covered to the top, a saucer as a weightWait two days
Leave at room temperature out of the sun. After 48 hours in summer (72 in a cool room) the brine turns cloudy and the cucumbers are half-sour: still green, lightly tangy. Move to the fridge, where fermentation almost stops.
After two days: cloudy brine, cucumber still green
Before you start
Half-sour or full-sour?
The same process at different moments. After 2 days half-sour, after 7–10 fully soured, sharp and olive-coloured. Half-sours keep a week in the fridge.
White film, foam
On top of the brine that is normal fermentation; skim it off. The only alarm is fuzzy mould or a rotten smell: then throw them out.
Leaves in the jar
A horseradish, cherry, oak or blackcurrant leaf adds tannins and crunch. If you have one, add one or two.