We love good Kosher dill pickles. I have never found any on a grocery store shelf that I could eat. Aside from great NY deli real Koshers that they make on site, the next best seemed to be grocery refrigerated ones like Klausen. Some 25 years ago I started making my own in the summer when the dill and cukes were going strong in the garden. Those were the naturally fermented ones that you do in a crock with just water, salt, fresh garlic, dill weed and flowers (NO DILL SEED!) and a little pickling spice. Sometimes they were successful, sometimes not (spoiled). We liked them after fermenting for less than a week. After several weeks they were too sour for us. Anyhow, this year I tried faking the real thing, and I believe it's the best alternative.
This does about 2 qts pickles:
1 qt water
1/4 c. Koshering salt
1/4 c. + 1T. (I added the extra 1T. to the latest batch yesterday) cider vinegar
A bunch of fresh dill weed and a flower head if you have one.
1 med garlic clove/qt pickles, chopped coarsly
Tiny pinch of pickling spice
Optional: a hot pepper, cut in half lengthwise for hotter, chopped for HOT.
About 8 small pickling cukes (4" long or less)
Boil water, salt, and vinegar. Set aside (or stick in the freezer) to cool down to room temp.
Wash pickles. Slice them about 1/4" to 3/8" thick if you're in a hurry for them to be ready to eat...about a week. Depending on the size, whole pickles will be best after at least a month.
To each quart, put a small handful of dill weed, half the garlic, and the pickling spice. Fill half way with cukes. Add more dill weed, a flower, rest of garlic, pickling spice.
Fill to top with cukes. Add water/salt/vinegar, tapping a bit to make sure there are no bubbles. Fill to very top and put lid on. You can leave them out over night to hurry them along, but put them in the fridge the next morning.
We made the sliced pickles last for 8 weeks to see how they progressed. They were wonderful at the end and could have lasted longer. We're still working on the whole pickles, and they just keep getting better though I think 6-8 wks is about where they stop pickling.
[img]http://thebaldwins.com/pickles_sliced.jpg[/img]
Linda