Review: Excellent use of new spices and ingredients  to make a wide variety of pickles and other tasty condiments!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 27, 2014
While there are some substitutions I would make because of my own preferences (always apple cider vinegar, never distilled white and sugar substitutes) these recipes are spot on and would do a LOT to get people off the usual mayo, ketchup and mustard profile many of us have.  The only reason for using a lighter colored vinegar is the color of your pickles. If my pickles are a little darker in order to keep my old liver functioning a little better by using the apple cider vinegar, that's just Jim Dandy, peachy keen with me.I especially like the author's use of the term "hard cooked" rather than  "hard boiled" for her egg recipe because if you "boil" the eggs, you get the black mark around your yolks.  No yolking!  I know, bad pun.Now you don't have to buy the canned pickled jalapeños -- you can pickle your own and they won't be slimy.You must try the Preserved Lemons. They add a whole new taste to your cooking if you're not familiar with them. Don't forget -- coriander leaves translates as cilantro to us Tex-Mexers.If you've never tried making Pickled Ginger but you love it at the Chinese or Japanese Sushi houses, here's a recipe for just that.  But don't use a peeler to "peel the ginger" -- just scrape/rub off the outer covering with a spoon as Martha Stewart teaches.  That way, you don't lose a LOT of ginger going over the bums and knobs on your ginger root with a peeler.The most impressive recipe to me was The Put it on Everything Onion Pickle because it uses lime which also got me to thinking about preserving limes as well as lemons.  Will have to play with that one..If you've never eaten or are not familiar with Kirby cucumbers, they are the best for pickling. In fact, even without pickling, they have a sort of "pickle" taste to me.  They were originally developed for pickling -- they are fat, uniform in size  and have lots of little wart-like bumps on the outside.  They take well to pickling.You can use any kind of salt you want EXCEPT iodized.  You can use rock salt, pickling salt, sea salt, kosher salt, etc.  But never, never NEVER iodized.If you're ever in this author's kitchen, don't stand still too long -- you'll get "pickeled" because there's almost nothing missed to the pickling process in this book.The graphic in each recipe is refreshing to see.  Nothing earth shattering but it just shows how  good looking a cook books can be while having a simple format.While there are a few minor publishing and editing problems, on balance that's NBD because the recipes are so original and worthy.