Easy Pickles

Salting your pickles will help retain their crunch, but is not essential and you can get great pickles without doing this step.

Cut 1 medium red onion into 3-5mm slices, 1 large brown onion into 2-4mm slices, 1 large whole cucumber into 2-4mm slices, 1 large carrot into 2mm slices.

Put everything into a mixing bowl and add 30g of good quality ground salt, mix it all in with your hands and leave covered with a tea towel for a minimum of 4 hrs. Ideally overnight. Discard the juice in the bowl which will have been drawn out of the vegetables by the salt. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry.

500ml cider or white wine vinegar

200g light muscovado sugar

Aromatics, what do you like? It wont taste exactly like what you like but it will provide

Try a clove of garlic, a teaspoon of black peppercorns, a bayleaf or 2, a teaspoon of yellow mustard seeds, sprig of thyme. Chillies, citrus peel. It all works.

Put the aromatics in a pan with the vinegar and sugar and bring to a gentle boil. Turn off the heat and allow to cool.

While that is cooling, sterilise your jars and lids, you will need 4 standard size jam jars or 2 500ml storage jars.

Pack your vegetables in and then cover with the pickling liquid, secure the lids and wait at least 5 days. The longer the more flavour.