Name: Ada Gail’s Authentic Jewish Dill-Pickled Cucumber
Yield: Makes 6 1-litre (2-pint) jars
Ingredients: 18 fat cloves of garlic, peeled; 36 black peppercorns; 18 sprigs of fresh dill; 8.5 1 litres (14¼ pints, 9 quarts) water; 250 ml (8 fl oz, 1 cup) cider or white wine vinegar; 350 g (12 oz, 1½ cups) coarse (Kosher) salt; 6 mild chillies, fresh or dried; 1½ tsp alum (used to keep the pickle crisp; try to talk the chemist or pharmacist into selling you some); 1 Tbsp pickling spice; 6 vine leaves, blanched if fresh (optional); 3 kg (6 lb) pickling cucumbers about 8 cm (3 in) long, scrubbed and soaked overnight in water with a handful of salt

Preparation info

Makes
6
1 litre jars

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

The Feast of Christmas

By Paul Levy

Published 1992

About

This is it — the real thing. I have published this recipe before in The Official Foodie Handbook, in Out to Lunch, in the Conran-Habitat Cook’s Calendar and in the Time-Life Good Cook series. I have always got one detail or another wrong. Here is the correct recipe.