Piccalilli

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large mixing bowl for salting
• •Colander
• •Large heavy-bottomed saucepan
• •Whisk
• •4 sterilised glass jars with vinegar-proof lids (around 300ml each)
• •Funnel for filling jars (helpful but not essential)

Instructions

1. 1

   Salt the vegetables

   Tip the cauliflower, onions, cucumber and beans into a large bowl. Dissolve the salt in the litre of cold water and pour it over the vegetables. Weight them down with a plate so they stay submerged. Leave on the kitchen counter overnight, or for at least twelve hours. The salt draws out the water that would otherwise turn your pickle slack and watery. This is the step you can't skip.

   Cut everything to roughly the same size. Not identical, just similar. You want each forkful to give you a bit of everything.
2. 2

   Drain and rinse

   The next morning, drain the vegetables in a colander and rinse them under cold running water. Shake them well and leave them to drip while you make the sauce. They should still have crunch when you press a piece between your fingers. That crunch is the whole point of piccalilli.

3. 3

   Sterilise the jars

   Wash your jars and lids in hot soapy water, rinse, then put them on a tray in a low oven, 130C, for fifteen minutes. They need to be hot when the pickle goes in. A cold jar and a hot pickle is how glass cracks.

4. 4

   Build the spiced vinegar

   Pour most of the vinegar into a large heavy-bottomed pan, holding back about 100ml for the cornflour. Add the sugar, mustard powder, turmeric, ginger and mustard seeds. Bring it gently to a simmer, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. The kitchen will smell sharp and yellow and slightly medicinal. That's right. It calms down later.

   Open a window. Hot vinegar with mustard in it has a way of finding the back of your throat.
5. 5

   Thicken the sauce

   Mix the cornflour with the reserved vinegar and the two tablespoons of cold water until smooth, no lumps. Pour this into the simmering pan, whisking as you go. Let it bubble for a couple of minutes. It should thicken to the consistency of a loose custard, glossy and bright yellow, just thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. If it looks thin, simmer a moment longer. If it goes too thick, a splash more vinegar pulls it back.

6. 6

   Add the vegetables

   Tip the drained vegetables into the pan and stir them through the hot sauce. Bring everything back up to a gentle simmer and cook for no more than three or four minutes. You're not trying to soften the vegetables, only to warm them through and let the sauce cling. Taste a piece of cauliflower. It should still snap.

7. 7

   Jar it up

   Spoon the piccalilli into the hot jars, pressing down gently with the back of a spoon to push out any pockets of air, and making sure the vegetables are properly covered by the sauce. Wipe the rims clean with a damp cloth, then seal tightly. Label them with the date. Put them somewhere cool and dark and forget about them for at least four weeks.

   The waiting is the difficult part. Fresh piccalilli tastes raw and harsh. After a month it has softened and rounded out into something altogether more generous.

Chef Tips

• •Make this when the vegetables are properly in season. September is the moment, when cauliflowers are tight and white, runner beans are still coming, and the small pickling cucumbers turn up at the market in heaps. Out of season, the vegetables won't have the structure to hold their crunch through the salting and the sauce.
• •Don't skip the overnight salting. It feels like a fussy step, but it's the difference between piccalilli that stays crisp for months and piccalilli that goes flabby in a week. The salt draws out the water before the vinegar can. Trust the process.
• •Wait the four weeks. I know. The temptation to crack a jar early is real, and a freshly made piccalilli does taste of something, but it tastes of raw mustard and sharp vinegar and not much else. After a month, the flavours have married into something rounder, warmer, properly itself.
• •Eat it with cold meats, mature cheddar, a pork pie, a ploughman's lunch, leftover roast ham, or a cheese sandwich made with too much butter. It belongs in the simple, honest end of British eating, and that's where it does its best work.

Advance Preparation

• •Piccalilli must be made at least four weeks ahead of when you want to eat it. The sharpness needs time to mellow.
• •Sealed and stored somewhere cool and dark, the jars will keep happily for up to a year. Once opened, refrigerate and eat within a month, though it rarely lasts that long.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 30g)