Kosher Dill Pickles

These are my ‘family famous’ Kosher Dill Pickles. The kosher implies that they are made with garlic. That’s the difference when you are at the grocery store and are buying dills.

There are two kinds of dill pickles – the kind made with vinegar and the kind made without. These are the ones without. Why?? The answer is twofold – firstly – for me, it’s the taste. I wanted to find a recipe that emulated the dill pickles that I was used to eating growing up – the crunchy, garlicky ones – like Strub’s Full Sour or Bubbie’s dill pickles.

Secondly – this answered the Holistic Nutritionist in me – the ones without vinegar are pickled through a process called fermentation. This is when the salt water chemically reacts with the natural carbohydrates in the vegetables creating good bacteria – probiotics. These occur during the lactic acid fermentation process of the cucumbers becoming pickles. So ‘science’y, I know. All you really need to know is this – when you look at a jar of dill pickles, if there is a cloudy brine at the bottom of the jar, it is most likely fermented – that’s good.

Years ago I went on the hunt for the ultimate pickle recipe. With the help of the internet, there were so many recipes to try. I definitely had some trial and error (re the fermentation explosion of 2013) – but remembered that my father made pickles when we were young after doing a cooking course at a friend of our family’s house – Renee Simmons. So I emailed her and asked if she still had her recipe – to my great luck she did – voila – the perfect pickles have re-emerged!!

I annually batch pickle – usually about 2 dozen or so jars – my family goes through about a dozen per year and I give away the rest to family and friends.