Pickling Spice

Name: Pickling Spice
Yield: Makes about ⅔ cup
Ingredients: 2 teaspoons dill seeds; 1 piece dried gingerroot (1 inch long); 2 teaspoons coriander seeds; 2 tablespoons mustard seeds; 2 teaspoons whole cloves; 4 cinnamon sticks (each about 3 inches long); 2 teaspoons whole allspice berries; 1 small dried hot red pepper (1½ inches long), chopped or crumbled medium fine, seeds and all; 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns; 8 bay leaves, crumbled medium fine; 2 teaspoons whole mace, crumbled medium fine

Preparation info

Makes about
⅔ cup

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Better Than Store-Bought

By Helen Witty and Elizabeth Schneider

Published 1979

About

The recipe reproduced here comes courtesy of our knowledgeable friend Cecily Brownstone. Mixing your own pickling spice makes sense, especially if you don’t favor the predominance of allspice and cloves encountered in many commercial mixtures. Cecily’s spice is judiciously compounded of the aromatic, the pungent, and the peppery.

Ingredients

4 cinnamon sticks (each about 3 inches long)
1 piece dried gingerroot (

Spice Mix
Vegan
Gluten-free
Spicy

Method

Cecily’s method is to wrap the cinnamon and gingerroot loosely in a piece of cloth and bash them with a hammer until well crumbled. She discards any stringy parts of the ginger, then mixes the cinnamon and ginger bits with the other ingredients.