Pickled Red Cabbage

[Clairylou]

Ive never pickled anything before and want to have a go at pickling some red cabbage from my allotment, ive got sarsons ready spiced pickling vinegar which says there is no need to boil but all the recipes ive found so far say i need to boil up vinegar with various ingredients before use, can anyone tell me what i need to do.

Thanks

Clairylou
???

[Clairylou]

[saddad]

I'd prefer to cook it with apples etc and freeze the mush!
;D

[Hyacinth]

C, as your Sarsons vinegar is already spiced, there's no need to do anything else to it except pour it over the prepared shredded cabbage.

Shred the cabbage and layer it on a flat tray or something, covering each layer with cooking salt. Leave for perhaps a day?....this will draw the excess moisture out of the cabbage. Drain and pack into jars - no need to rinse. And then cover with the Sarsons. 8)

Done!

[Clairylou]

Thanks Alishka that was a great help.
:)

[Simon05]

we dont salt the red cabbage as it makes it too salty, we shred the cabbage pack it into a jar pour over spiced vinegar, leave for a month or so then its ready to eat

[Hyacinth]

.......but by draining the cabbage, it not only gets rid of the excess moisure but also some/most of the salt and keep the cabbage crisp? I've never found that my cabbage goes 'mushy' or that it's salty to taste? Praps I should have said "a light sprinkling of salt between the layers"?

Certainly, I believe this process of 'dry brine' is necessary?

[Simon05]

.......but by draining the cabbage, it not only gets rid of the excess moisure but also some/most of the salt and keep the cabbage crisp? I've never found that my cabbage goes 'mushy' or that it's salty to taste? Praps I should have said "a light sprinkling of salt between the layers"?

Certainly, I believe this process of 'dry brine' is necessary?

when we have salted in the past we found it didnt stay crisp, just pickleing it with out salting stayed crisper, we found the same with pickled onions. But each to their own, stick to what you know works best.

[star]

This is mums recipe, I dont know if it preserves ok, but it should do. We have it with pork. Its delish.

1 Apple
1 Onion
1 red cabbage, not huge.
Teas. Cumin seed
Half and half water and vinegar
sugar
salt

You can put in as much or as little sugar as you wish. As this is a sweet sour recipe you can add as much as your taste buds like. You can do the same with the cumin seeds, bear in mind they do taste quite strong, so better to add as you go than put in too many at the start.

Bring to the boil in a heavy pan, then simmer for a couple of hours. Taste and adjust seasoning. Its lovely hot with pork or ham. Naturally its not crisp due to the long cooking. But it freezes well.

A word of warning.....dont cook this if you are having guests you want to impress. It smells like old sweaty socks. Its fine to be heated through though.

[jennym]

Have pickled red cabbage in this way: brine it rather than dry salt it - the brine mix is 50g of salt to 500ml water. Leave the shredded cabbage in the brine for 24 hours, then drain off the brine, pat dry with clean cloth, then put into jars and add the vinegar, cold.
Have found that using the stalk and inner leaves of the cabbage chopped coarse gives a crisper result than following most recipes which normally say chop the cabbage thinly and don't use the stalk!
Modified to add: you need to have a mix by weight of at least one third vinegar to two thirds cabbage for it to keep well.