Pickled Radishes?

[myrrhmade]

A few days ago I tried to make my first pickled anything, which were radishes because I grew far too many of them. I tried this easy recipe from Epicurious and while they were ok, they were too sweet, and not salty and sour enough for me. Does anyone have a fool-proof recipe they like for salty sour pickled stuff? Am I using the wrong kind of

Comments

[spaceprostitute]

Honestly, 1 tsp. of sugar shouldn't make that big of difference, particularly to 2 c. of vinegar. My default basic refrigerator pickle recipe (which is more bread and butter style sweet pickles) calls for 1.75 c. sugar to 1 c. vinegar. You could up the salt and reduce the sugar. Those proportions seem quite a bit off to me anyway in the Epicurious recipe. For non-bread and butter pickles, I usually see at least a small amount of sugar (but sometimes left out altogether) and usually see at least a minimum of one tablespoon of salt to one cup of vinegar. Also, that recipe seems a bit...bland to me. I almost always throw in at least a teaspoon of whole mustard seed, sometimes some dill seed, celery seed, or red pepper flakes, depending on the flavor profile I'm going for, and sometimes some Penzey's pickling spice (the amounts I'm citing would be for about one cup of vinegar, which usually covers about six small cucumbers, one medium carrot, and two small onions all thinly sliced. Two cups of vinegar seems a bit much for just 10 radishes.

Another factor, is did you taste the radishes before hand? Were they hot and peppery? You didn't say what variety you grew, so it could be the variety as well. For instance, watermelon radishes are much more mild and sweeter than your red globe variety, and picked earlier means they won't be as peppery as well.

[myrrhmade]

I did not taste the pickling juice, but thanks to you, now I know to do it. Also, I love Penzeys, so I'll be ordering their blend asap.

My radishes were pretty hot and peppery, but the sugar sort of overpowered that. It makes sense to me that the recipe was bland (as well as too sweet). I can work on that. =)