Zucchini pickles (gluten-free + vegan)

Hi friends!

It’s been a real long time since I’ve shared new recipes in this space. The past 15 months I’ve instead been focusing all my love and attention into my (now closed down) membership site Tipu. I’m really proud of the beautiful space that was created and all the recipes, garden guides and videos I poured my heart and soul into creating, but I’m also totally at peace with closing that chapter and moving onto other projects. This has also freed up a little time to be able to share recipes on this site on occasion once again, which I know many of you will be relieved to hear as I contemplated shutting the whole site down last year. It’s been a wild ride in recent years, I’m not gonna lie, and while I’ve gone backwards and forwards on some things and done a complete 180 turn on others, I’m allowing myself the grace and curiosity of exploration and knowing that it’s more than okay to change my mind at any given point if something isn’t working. All this to say, hi, I’m back. I hope your start to this new year has been a gentle one.

Much love,

Emm X

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Zucchini pickles (gluten-free + vegan)

Based on the more common bread and butter pickles -which is made with cucumbers (see my recipe linked below)- this zucchini/courgette version retains all the same characteristics of a good cucumber pickle and is the perfect way to deal with a glut of courgette! I favour small-medium courgette to pickle as the texture is firmer than large ones and if you have a mandolin, they come in handy with all that slicing. The trick to getting a good seal on this simple pickle without having to muck around with water baths, is to have everything hot. Hot jars, hot lids, hot pickling liquid. For this reason, I only pull one jar out of the oven at a time, to pack and seal. I recommend using lids with the little bumps on the top, so you can clearly see if they’ve sealed or not. Start this recipe a day ahead, to allow time to salt the sliced zucchini/courgette. Please note I use both zucchini and courgette interchangeably (they're the same thing, just called different things in different countries).

Servings 5 medium jars

Ingredients

• 1kg medium zucchini/courgette
• 1 medium onion finely sliced
• 3 tablespoons fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds
• 480ml apple cider vinegar
• 120ml water preferably filtered
• 150g (3/4 cup) golden caster or raw sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric

Instructions

• Finely slice courgette to approx. 3mm thick, if you have a mandolin it makes the job quick and easy. Transfer to a glass or ceramic bowl, add onion and salt and mix thoroughly with your hands to distribute the salt evenly. Cover and leave on your benchtop overnight.
• The following day, preheat oven to 120C. Place 5 x 300ml freshly cleaned jars into the oven and heat for 20 minutes to sterilise. When nearly ready to fill jars, place the lids into a saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer 5 minutes.
• Transfer courgette/onion mixture to a colander and rinse well with cold water. Allow to drain, then transfer to a clean tea towel. Spread mixture out in a thin layer over half of the tea towel, then fold over towel and gently pat to remove excess water.
• Transfer courgette/onion to a large bowl. Add mustard seeds and mix through.
• Combine vinegar, water, sugar and turmeric in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Once boiling, turn down to the lowest setting to keep it hot until needed.
• One at a time, remove a jar from the oven, pack it with the courgette/onion mixture, ladle in enough pickling liquid to cover. Quickly run a knife or skewer around the inside of the jar, to remove air bubbles, then top up with a more picking liquid if needed. Screw on a lid (tight but not overly so), then set aside and repeat with remaining jars.
• The lids will suck down and seal as the jars cool. If any don’t suck down, store them in the fridge and use within 2 weeks. If sealed correctly, jars will store happily in a cool dark place for up to 12 months, although they do tend to lose their crunch after about 6 months.

Notes

This recipe was first created for and featured in On The Land magazine, NZ. 

Bread and Butter Pickles recipe HERE.