How to preserve food in vinegar

You can easily preserve fruits, vegetables and herbs in vinegar as people have done for centuries. It produces delicious foods and gives bacteria little chance of thriving. Here's how.

There are two things to keep in mind as you prepare your preserves: select your vinegars, as they clearly influences taste; and, as with any preserves, cleanliness is important, so make sure your jars and implements are spotless.Preserving basics

• Add herbs or spices for a stronger taste when pickling foods.
• Pick light, distilled varieties of vinegar with good flavour, such as cider, white wine or malt.
• Practically anything with a reasonably firm peel can be pickled. Fruit such as pears and plums, or mixtures of vegetables and fruit, taste wonderful in a sweet-sour broth.
• Never use dishes made of aluminum, copper or brass when pickling. The acid in the vinegar will attack the surface, and your pickles will be contaminated by the metals.
• Before consuming the fruits of your labour, let the pickles or preserves steep for a month. After opening, eat up the contents promptly.

1. To keep veggies crisp and prevent them from watering down the vinegar with their high water content, place them first in a salt brine for around 24 hours. Mix together one litre/quart of water and about 50 millilitres (1/4 cup) of salt, and put the vegetables into a bowl and cover them with the brine. Rinse them thoroughly before processing.
2. To make the vinegar solution, boil up a little over 500 millilitres (two cups) vinegar and 250 millilitres (one cup) water, five millilitres (one teaspoon) salt, plus any spices and herbs.
3. Briefly blanch about one kilogram (two pounds) washed and sliced vegetables in the solution.
4. Remove them with a skimmer and layer them in a jar to within 2.5 centimetres (one inch) of the rim.
5. Add spices, if desired. Commonly used spices include peppercorns, mustard seeds, garlic, bay leaf and chili flakes. You can layer fresh spices between the vegetables. You may not want to add some spices directly to the jars; instead, suspend them in the pickling liquid in a small spice packet or a ceramic tea ball and remove before filling the jars.
6. Boil the vinegar solution again and pour it into the jars. The liquid should cover the vegetables completely. Seal the jars and stand them on their lids for a few minutes, then turn.

Sweet-sour fruits pickled in vinegar go well with all meat dishes.

• Add 10 to 15 millilitres (two to three teaspoons) of sugar to the sour pickling solution above, according to taste, and then follow the same method as with sour pickling. Honey or fruit juice concentrate can replace some of the sugar.
• Stone fruit such as plums can be layered in the jars raw. Fill up the jar with the hot vinegar solution and then seal.
• Good spices for sweet-sour pickling include cloves, ginger and allspice.

One more tip: Cucumbers and plums turn out crispier and more flavourful if you prick them all around with a toothpick.

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