Polish 'Swedish' cucumber salad for winter: thin slices, onion, carrot and a sweet-and-sour brine
A salad of ridge cucumbers, onion and carrot that Poland calls Swedish, though its link to Sweden is loose at best. The vegetables are salted for two hours so they release water and stay crunchy, then covered with a hot brine of vinegar, sugar and oil with mustard seed and pasteurised for a quarter of an hour. In winter it goes straight from the jar onto a ham sandwich, beside a cutlet, next to a grilled sausage.
Your own work in that: 40 min.
- Slicing 20 min
- Vegetables releasing water 120 min
- Brine and jars 20 min
- Pasteurising 15 min
- Cooling 25 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneSlice the vegetables thinly
Wash the cucumbers, don't peel, trim the ends and slice into 2–3 mm rounds, ideally on a mandoline. Cut the onions into thin half-rings, grate the carrots coarsely or slice them thinly.
Ingredients: 2000 g ridge cucumbers · 500 g onions · 2 pcs carrots · 2 tbsp salt
TipEven thickness means even crunch. Slices thicker than 3 mm stay hard in the middle; thinner than 2 mm go soft in pasteurising.
2–3 mm slices, onion in half-ringsSalt and leave
Toss the vegetables with the salt in a large bowl, cover and leave 2 hours. The salt draws water out of the cucumbers: that is what keeps the salad crunchy and stops the brine from thinning.
TipNot a step to skip. Unsalted cucumbers give up their water in the jar and the salad ends up swimming in a thin, bland brine.
Salt, two hours, edges going limpDrain
Tip the vegetables into a colander and leave 10 minutes, pressing lightly with your hand. Don't rinse and don't wring them out: the salad should be firm, not squeezed dry. Scald six 500 ml jars and their lids with boiling water.
Drained, not wrungBoil the brine
Bring the vinegar, water, sugar, oil, mustard seeds, pepper, bay leaves and allspice to the boil in a pot, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Boil 2 minutes. The brine must be hot when it goes over the vegetables.
Ingredients: 250 ml spirit vinegar, 10 % · 250 ml water · 250 g sugar · 100 ml rapeseed oil · 2 tbsp mustard seeds · 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper · 3 pcs bay leaves · 6 pcs allspice berries
TipOil in the brine is what makes this salad: it softens the vinegar and coats the vegetables in a thin film, so they stay glossy and firm. Without oil it is just sliced pickled cucumbers.
Vinegar, sugar, oil, mustard seed: until the sugar dissolvesFill the jars and pour
Spoon the drained vegetables into the jars, pressing down, to 2 cm below the rim. Pour over the hot brine to cover them; give each jar half a bay leaf and one allspice berry from the brine. Wipe the rims, screw the lids on tightly.
Pressed down, covered with hot brinePasteurise a quarter of an hour
Stand the jars in a pot on a cloth, add hot water to three-quarters of their height, bring to the boil and pasteurise 15 minutes from the boil over low heat. Lift out, stand upside down 10 minutes, turn upright and leave to cool.
TipFifteen minutes is enough because the vegetables are already salted and the brine is strongly acidic. Longer gives a soft, brownish salad.
Fifteen minutes from the boil, no longerWait, then eat
The salad is ready after 2 weeks, once the brine has worked through the vegetables. Keeps a year in a dark pantry. An opened jar, 10 days in the fridge. On sandwiches, with meat, as a dinner side instead of a fresh salad.
After two weeks: crunchy, sweet-and-sour
Before you start
With pepper
One red pepper in thin strips per 2 kg cucumbers: colour and sweetness. Salt it with the rest of the vegetables.
Sharper or sweeter
The brine as given (250 ml vinegar, 250 ml water, 250 g sugar) is the middle ground. Like it sharper? 300 ml vinegar and 200 ml water. Sweeter? 300 g sugar.
The salad went soft
Slices too thick or too thin, the salting skipped, or pasteurised too long. Firm first-crop cucumbers, and a timer by the pot.