The Pickle 25 · No. 3 of 25

1. No.3Good Food Award winnerPhoto: Real Pickles

   Dill and sour

   Organic Garlic Dill Pickles

   From Real Pickles · Greenfield, Massachusetts · @realpickles

   Fermented○○○No heat

   A worker-owned co-op in western Massachusetts. Organic Northeast vegetables, salt and time; everything is fermented, nothing is pasteurized, so the jar is alive.

   This is what a pickle tasted like before vinegar took over. Clean, salty, sour, a lot of garlic. Keep it cold; it's still working.

   Eat it withA grilled cheeseBoiled potatoes with butter and dillSmoked fish on toast

   Order from Real Pickles ↗More from Real Pickles ↗

   Chef's quick version

   Fermented garlic dills

   20 min, then 4 to 7 days · makes 1 quart · The same method as the barrel men, made smaller and garlic-heavy. Keep the jar cool (65 to 72°F) and the pickles under the brine and you can't go wrong.

   Save to my recipes

   You need

   • 1½ lb (680 g) small pickling cucumbers
   • 4 cups (950 ml) filtered water
   • 2 tbsp (36 g) fine sea salt
   • 10 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
   • 2 dill heads or a handful of dill fronds and stems
   • 1 tsp black peppercorns
   • 2 grape or oak leaves, or 1 black tea bag (for crunch)

   How to make it

   1. Soak the cucumbers in ice water for 30 minutes so they firm up. Trim the blossom ends.
   2. Dissolve the salt in the water.
   3. Layer the leaves, garlic, dill and peppercorns with the cucumbers in a clean jar, packed tight.
   4. Cover with brine and weigh them down so they stay under.
   5. Leave at cool room temperature. Bubbles and cloudy brine by day 2 or 3 are good signs.
   6. Taste from day 4. When they are sour enough, refrigerate. They keep getting better for a week in the fridge.

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

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Real Pickles didn't pay to be here. Order goes straight to their shop. The quick version is Chef's own, in our words.