Pickled Green Tomatoes

By Erinswan

Adapted from David Lebovitz, Michael Ruhlman and Michael Symon’s pickle recipes
Makes four pints or two quarts of pickles

Ingredients

• 2 qt cherry tomatoes or about 6-8 full size tomatoes – firm and very green
• 2.5 c water
• 2.5 c white vinegar
• 3 T kosher salt
• 3 T sugar
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 4 T coriander seed
• 4 T yellow mustard seed
• 4 T black peppercorns
• 4 bay leaves
• 4 small red chiles, optional

Details

Servings 4
Preparation time 20mins
Cooking time 45mins
Adapted from floridahillbilly.com

Preparation

Step 1

■Bring water, vinegar, salt and sugar plus the garlic clove to boil in a non-reactive saucepan. Boil 5 minutes.
■Poke a hole with a toothpick, knife blade or skewer in each of the cherry tomatoes.Quarter the whole tomatoes.
■Pack into sterilized jars.
■Add 1 T each of the seeds, 1 bay leaf and one chile to each pint jar. Double the quantities if you are using quarts.
■Pour the hot brine over the tomatoes.
■Cover and allow to cool.
■Refrigerate for a week before sampling.

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If you want to process it for long-term storage, Ball states 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. I opt to not process, as the little suckers don’t last long, AND I have a line of folks waiting for more. It seems that that tomolives make the perfect garnish for a dirty martini, and the hard-core martini drinkers like some of the juice added as well. So it seems my tomolives are a great barter item. (Joe, I liked that deer bacon….*hint hint*)

I’ve also found that any vegetable does well in this brine/spice mix. And since I do not process it, all the veggies I’ve used so far haven’t ended up soft or mushy.