We love pickling vegetables for our salad’s as it adds so much flavour and keeps so well. This weekend we had a load of carrots left over from a bag we bought so thought we would try them pickled, as the fennel and cauliflower were so successful. I can never believe how simple and cheap it is, in high end restaurants you often have pickled baby veg on the menu, I think this jar cost around 50p to make and is such a good way to use up leftover veg. You can use the same brine liquid for any vegetables or you can do a mixed jar. Once you start there is no going back I wish I had tried pickling vegetables sooner.

Ingredients – (made 1 jar)

• 8 carrots
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
• 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, cut into slices
• 6 whole black peppercorns
• 1/2 tsp whole mustard seeds
• 1/2 tsp whole coriander seeds
• 2–3 fresh sprigs thyme
• 150ml white wine vinegar
• 50ml water
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp salt

Method

1. Peel the carrots, slice off the stem ends, and trim them so that they will fit into a your preserving jar with half an inch of head space above them. Cut them lengthwise into quarters.
2. Put a piece of the garlic, ginger, pepper, mustard and coriander seeds into a sterilised jar. Hold the jar at an angle making it easier to fill with the carrot batons, once you have layered around half a dozen of baton’s insert a piece of ginger, garlic and spice mixture repeating until jar is tightly full so it will infuse the whole jar
3. Tuck in the thyme can use a baton to push it down between the layers
4. Put the vinegar, water, salt, and honey into a small pot and bring them to a boil over high heat, stirring to dissolve the salt and honey.
5. Pour the hot vinegar brine over the carrots and other ingredients in the jar. Be sure that the food is completely immersed in the brine, but there is still 1/4 inch of head space.
6. Wipe the rim of the jar clean. Screw on the jar lid tightly (we use a rubber glove). Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 months wait at least four days for the flavour’s to develop before tasting.

Inspiration from Leda Meredith