What is your favorite pickle? (moved from Home Cooking)

I love hot/spicey dills...like those Vlasic tobascco ones. Love em very cold out of the frig. I could eat half a jar or more while watching late night tv.

Does anyone have a hot dill pickle recipe?

What kind of pickles do you like?

[goodhealthgourmet]

guss sour pickles straight out of the barrel in nyc.

[litchick]

I am a pickle fanatic (of all pickle ethnicities: jewish, korean, indian, etc, etc, etc), and I am totally addicted to Moon Brine Pickles. They sell them online, but I find them fairly easily here in Boston.

http://www.moonbrine.com/

God, they're terrific. Especially the hot ones.

[Pampatz]

Has anyone tried Polski Wyrobs. They are a hot, spicy dill type pickle that are addictive.
Other favorites - Bread-and-Butter and cornichons

[coney with everything]

Sechlers Sweet Heat. They're sweet...AND they're hot!

My late grandma's bread & butter pickles were the best ever. My sister has made them but not quite the same

[davebough]

Love Raskin's and Topor's salt cured dills. I think SE Michigan is the only place you can get them.
dave

[Justpaula]

If I am the supermarket, the ONLY pickles I will buy is Vlasic Kosher Dills. I grew up with them - the only ones my Dad would buy, and I think it b/c they were the only ones that required referigeration. Typically, if I go to a kosher deli though, I prefer half-sour. I guess I like them more cucumber-y than pickle-y. I have been tossing around the idea of making my own though, so any recipes are appreciated.

[markabauman]

Ba-Tampte isn't bad, but I really like Bubbe's.

[meatn3]

I second it fr Bubbe's! Their kraut is good too.

[wayne keyser]

Good bread-&-butter pickles

Kimchi

Lately I've discovered how good it can be to slice fresh cucumbers, toss with a little salt and more sugar and a good splash of vinegar, cover and leave them on the counter for several hours - Put them aside by lunchtime, and by dinner, they're delicious!

[applehome]

My bbq standard side is cukes (trick is to not slice ultra-thin - maybe 1/8") which I first salt and leave for 30 minutes, then rinse off, add thin sliced onions, sugar and vinegar. Let stand for 2 hours minimum - even overnight in the fridge is good. Personal taste is to use white vinegar. Cider/wine/etc... brings in tastes that interfere with the nice clean finish.

[WildSwede]

Wayne your cuck recipe is very Scandinavian. We always had a tupperware of these in the fridge. So good!

[hotteacher1976]

Vlassic or old-school barrel pickles. I am a kosher dill pickle lover!

[MobyRichard]

Almost any kind of kim chee. Also, when I was a sprat (maybe that should be, when I was a calf), my mom used to make picked radishes. They were amazing.

[Kelli2006]

Tony Packos. I prefer the thick sliced with the peppers.

[luvs2munchabunch]

Was visiting NYC a few years ago...@ the Columbus Street Fair UWS (mid-late September)...had some wonderful half & full sours from (maybe) the Pickle Guys or the Pickle Doctor??? Anyway, they had great pickled 'shrooms and tomatoes too...my friends bought several containers and re-packed them to take on the plane!!!!

My fav commerical ones now are Tony Packo's "Sweet-Hots"...sweet and spicy...makes a great tartar sauce too...!!!YUMMY

[tatertotsrock]

Oh YES...TONY PACKO'S SWEET HOTS and all the others they have.
If you live in LA, the Artisain Cheese Gallery on Ventura/Laurel sells them and also includes a side of 'em with your sandwhich orders...YUM!!!
Nothing is better than a crisp/spicey/tastey pickle between bites of a perfect grilled cheese sandwhich...mmm!

[Razorback]

I can't believe no one has said southern lime pickles. Crisp, sweet and sour all at the same time. I make them every June. The only thing I have been able to successfully can.

[SweetPhyl]

OMG! My grandmother made the BEST lime pickles...I haven't had them since she passed 10 years ago. However, my father insists that they must be made with KY grown cucumbers.
Nevertheless, please share your reicpe...I'd love to try!

[reubensandperrier]

Dill pickles are my favorite food in the entire world, and when I was a kid, I used to make popsicles out of the juice. Not kidding!

My favorite pickles I've ever encountered are Sechler's pickles from Indiana. I've yet to be able to get them outside of IN, but they are the tastiest pickles I've ever had the pleasure of eating. You can order them online and I highly recommend it!:

http://www.gourmetpickles.com/pages/h...

[hotteacher1976]

haha I drank the juice like it was water!

[reubensandperrier]

Yes! A fellow pickle juice drinker! I knew I wasn't alone..

[WildSwede]

I am another! ;-) My favorite pickles at the moment are the Mango Pickles from India. I just eat it by the spoonfuls and sweat to death!

[prunefeet]

Oh man, I not only drank pickle juice, I drank olive brine. And occassionally sipped vinegar or even soy sauce. Lol.

[southernitalian]

I drank that and more and I still do random A1 shots.

[goodhealthgourmet]

re: drinking vinegar, many people swear by the health and weight control benefits of doing straight shots of apple cider vinegar.

i love the stuff and use it quite a bit, but for now i'll stick to pouring it on my salad.

[yogurtsoda]

iranian garlic pickles (seer torshi) - the longer they pickle, the darker and softer they get. you have to wait at least two years to start eating a batch, but the best i've had was a 20-year old batch that had turned black and was soft as jam.

and i love japanese pickles (tsukemono), especially daikon and plum.

[Dave Westerberg]

These are great pickles. I'd never had them before I moved to Texas. I eat them like candy and smell like garlic for days. Wicked.

INGREDIENTS:
1 gallon chunk dill pickles
1 (5 ounce) bottle hot pepper sauce (e.g. TabascoTM)
1 head of garlic, chopped
1 (5 pound) bag of white sugar
DIRECTIONS:
Drain the brine from the pickles and discard. Return pickels to the jar. Pour in the hot pepper sauce, and add the garlic. Pour in about 1/3 of the sugar. Close the lid tightly. Gently tip the jar back and forth several times to allow everything to mix well. Leave out on the counter at room temperature for about 1 week.

During the week, add more sugar as the sugar in the jar dissolves. Gently tip the jar back and forth to mix. Continue the process throughout the week, until you have used up all of the sugar. When all of the sugar has been absorbed, pickles will be dark green and crispy. Transfer pickles to smaller sterile jars, and divide syrup between jars. Seal with lids and rings. Store in the refrigerator, and consume within one month.

[LoDega]

Slow day at work today...

My mom has been grating horse radish root into jars of bread and butter pickles, and it's so tasty! Sweet, but not cloying, and HOT (especially the longer they sit and the closer you get to the bottom of the jar)!

Mmmm...

The best store bought pickles are actually Straub's brand available in Western New York. They are made in Canada and are way better than Ba Tempte or any other purportedly kosher pickle. Straub's also sells excellent saurkraut and pickled peppers.

Yeah, second Strab's Canadian pickles. So crunchy, love them.

Clausan's kosher mini dills. Best pickle from a jar ever. Very crunchy and flavorful. They are in the refrigerator case at many markets.

yeah, I buy them because they have small ones in a jar but they are loaded with HFC and other crap. I'd only buy Ba'Tempte's but they are larger than I need and go off before I can use up a jar. 2 people watching salt can make a jar of pickles last a long time. Can't abide Vlasic or Sechler's, especially those candied things.

[Steve]

Ba-Tempte pickles go off quickly because their jars are hardly even sealed at all. I think a 15-month-old toddler could twist off those lids. But I think the garlic dills are so worth it, even then. Very hard to beat. I don't go for the half sour at all.

kind of off-topic, but I have become obsessed with Indian lime pickle lately. It is sour enough to turn your face inside out. I love it. I think you are supposed to use it sparingly as a condiment but sometimes I just stand over the jar, sweating and eating.

Either lime or lemon. Both are great. But I will never forget my first encounter and just popping that whole piece I was given in my mouth at one time. Wow was that a surprise!

What brand do you like?

[Snackish]

Me too. Love me some lime pickle.

My grandmother's recipe for Bread and Butter Pickles, a lot of work but worth it, they have peppers and onions in them. In a pinch Mrs. Fanning's Bread and Butter Pickles.
For hot and spicy I make my own dilled green bean pickles. People have been known to fight over them.

Dilly beans! I LOVE dilly beans. I haven't ever made them... perhaps I'll ask for your recipe this summer should I be inspired. I can eat an entire little canning glass jarful in short order.

It is an easy recipe. Just holler when you want it. I make about 4 pt.jars at a time which is managable, and they do need to set up a few weeks, but when the freah beans come to market I'll be making them.

Thanks! Do you think I could make them and not can them? If I promise to wash the jars really well and keep them in the fridge? Or will they not "brine" properly before they're no longer good for the eating?

They will brine in the refrigerator and that is what I do when I get a jar that does not seal. They only need a 15 minute water bath to can them though. As long as you have a pot or kettle deep enough to cover the tops of the jars with a couple of inches of water you can "can" them. You just need to put a dish towel in the bottom of the pot to help keep them from knocking into each other and cracking the jars. Sterile jars are a must and you want to pack them while the jars are hot and the brine is boiling hot too. Oh, and new jar lids, not used or old lids that have been been sitting in the box for a year waiting to be used.

....why not new lids from last year that haven't been used? how come? enlighten me, please.

I was taught only to use new lids to be more likely to get a seal. The material in older lids can dry out depending on how and where they were stored. Now if you want to risk going to all of the work and then not getting a seal ,use old lids if you want. They aren't so expensive that I cannot start with fresh new lids.

[geminigirl]

hello, just bumping in here, could you post your bean recipie?? thanks!

Candy, I *KNEW* you were gonna say bread & butter...and yup, my grandma's were the best, with Mrs. Fanning's more than acceptable, though just a tad sweet. I haven't tried to make any yet, though I think her recipe was in my mom's card file, which my sister now has. I'll ask. My favorite pickle atop a burger, hot dog, or even a nice thick-cut ham sandwich.

Genuine Kosher dills, the kind made with brine only, no vinegar, are pretty special too. Can't have those too often these days, but then just about anything in a good deli is borderline off-limits anymore, so what the heck...

I am going to have to e-mail my mother and get her to send me the recipe for the B&B's. I have just looked everywhere I can think to look and cannt find where I put that recipe.Dang!

The bread and butter pickles my mom made when I was a kid...nothing else is as good.

[Bitsy2]

Can I get your recipe for your Grandmaothers bread & butter ickles please? My email is [e-mail]

I buy Trader Joe's refrigerated kosher pickles (half sour style). They aren't expensive at all, and if you want to tweak the flavor, as you say you like it hot, you can always add more dried hot red pepper flakes, more chunked garlic, more pickling spices (boiled in a little of the jar liquid first) - whatever. My supermarket, the only one within walking distance, is Safeway, and I've checked all the brands of pickles they sell, including Vlasic, and they all contain nasty preservatives. Who needs that? TJ's doesn't.

Thanks Niki! I have bought TJ's before...it is good to know how to spice em up!

I made Hummus from garbanzo beans that I acutally cooked myself...so you'd think I could figure out how to make store bought pickles hotter. Nope.

Like you, I love, and make my own, hummus (and babaganoush - eggplant caviar). I also tried making the hummus by boiling raw garbanzo beans after reading a recipe that claimed it would taste better. I don't know what you thought yourself, but honestly, I don't think it tasted any better than with the canned garbanzos - and when extra work doesn't make a dish significantly better I have to ask, why bother? What did you think - was the raw better than the canned when you made it?

[Neta]

In school, we used to pour off the pickle juice then add the juice from a jar of hot chilis (the Mexican yellow chiles called chile hueritos) and let them sit for a few days. This made the pickles nice and hot. Save the pickle juice to soak your diced onions in when making a potato salad. Adds a nice flavor and crunch.

Justin Wilson's "wicked cajun pickles" are pretty tasty! I received a gift pack with a couple sauces and a jar of these pickles and immediately ordered a case of them!

Nice kick and crunch!

Cheers...

gusman

Junior's (in Brooklyn) full sours. Rein's (Vernon Ct.) also has decent full sours, but Junior's are better. I've asked both places where they get them (I can't imagine these big commercial deli's making their own) but they won't tell me. I don't think they're Gus's.

if you ever have a chance to try a korean pickle ...go for it, baby cucs are cut into for but not all the way through, the end portion is left intact, the quartered pieces are then stuffed with chili flakes and diced peppers and other fine stuff, then packed in jars to allow the flavors to fuse.....they are fabulous.....Asian supermarkets sell them on occassion but only in the fall months....

I'm a Vlasic guy myself, but have recently become absolutely obsessed with these bread and butter pickles I get at a local restaurant (house-made). I've tried alot of googled recipes, but they are all a bit different...not quite as good.

Ba-tampte is a decent but far second choice but sour or even half sour pickles from Guss-the Pickleman on Orchard Street is the best ever!

A friens in Alabama turned me on to Wickles Pickles. Sweet and hot, with a great crunch.
I am now adddicted, and have served them at cookouts to rave reviews.
www.wickles.com

Thanks for the website. I am on that one. Well, all of them really! I am from Sacramento...so hoping Gus on Orchard street in NY has a website!! I would love to go to NYC just to go to pickle perveyors..perfect.

Do the Wickles Pickles contain any dyes, preservatives or other chemicals according to the label? (sodium chloride - salt, or acetic or citric acid - vinegar, are OK).
Thanks.

Ba-tempte

Half sour

Me too! And they're hard to find where I live (Bay Area). I don't eat them right away--I wait a few weeks til they get more sour.

[PickyChicky]

count me in too! Half sours from NYC are even more desirable, but I take what I can get here in SC.

[missfunkysoul]

i really don't think that there is anything better on the planet than a half-sour pickle...

problem with getting ba-tempte outside of NYC though is that they are never GREEN by the time they get to their destination. and they have to be really, really green or else they are not half-sours in my book.