The Pickle 25 · No. 1 of 25

  1. Full Sour Pickles from The Pickle Guys No.1Photo: The Pickle Guys

    Dill and sour

    Full Sour Pickles

    From The Pickle Guys · Lower East Side, New York · @pickleguys

    Fermented○○○No heat$15 a jar

    The last of the Lower East Side barrel men. Cucumbers sit in salt brine with garlic and spices in barrels on the sidewalk, the way the neighborhood did it a hundred years ago, and the shop is kosher.

    A full sour is a pickle that has gone all the way: olive-green straight through, garlicky, soft snap. If you only buy one jar on this list, make it the one that tastes like the Lower East Side.

    Eat it withPastrami on ryeA cold beerChopped liver and crackers
    Order from The Pickle Guys ↗More from The Pickle Guys ↗

    Chef's quick version

    Five-day full sours

    20 min, then 5 to 10 days · makes 1 quart (about 6 pickles) · Salt, garlic, time. No vinegar: the sour comes from the brine fermenting. Taste from day 5; the longer it goes, the more it turns from half sour to full.

    Save to my recipes

    You need

    • 6 small Kirby cucumbers (about 1½ lb / 680 g), very fresh
    • 4 cups (950 ml) cool filtered water
    • 2 tbsp (36 g) fine sea salt or kosher salt with no additives
    • 6 garlic cloves, smashed
    • 1 tbsp pickling spice
    • 2 dill heads or a big handful of fresh dill
    • 1 grape, oak or bay leaf (keeps them crisp)

    How to make it

    1. Scrub the cucumbers and cut a thin slice off the blossom end (the end opposite the stem).
    2. Stir the salt into the water until it dissolves.
    3. Pack the cucumbers upright in a clean quart jar with the garlic, pickling spice, dill and the leaf.
    4. Pour in brine to cover by an inch. Weigh them down with a small zip bag of brine so nothing floats.
    5. Cover loosely and leave at cool room temperature, out of the sun. Skim any white film every day or two.
    6. From day 5, taste one. Half sour at 5 to 6 days, full sour at 8 to 10. When you like it, close the lid and refrigerate. Keeps a month.

    Chef's own quick version, in our words. It isn't The Pickle Guys's recipe: for the real thing, order the jar.

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← No. 25 Pickled Pink FoodsNo. 2 McClure's →Build a pickle plate

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