Pickled Onions

[Rudy Taylor]

Jo, are you still at the lake suffocating in that 5th wheel?

C'mon home!

[kdfrawg]

It is a little stifling, isn't it? I hope everybody, including Jo of course, is being able to stay fairly cool.

[Janet Harrington]

Now why on earth would anybody ruin a perfectly good onion by pickling it?

I think I'll draw a circle around Kermit, Diane AND Ta Ta and scoot you over to the side of my screen.

Nobody should pickle an onion.

I agree.  Pickled onions?  Yulk. 

[kdfrawg]

Aw, pickled onions are pretty darned tasty.

There are some things that you should not pickle, however. I saw a recipe by the Frugal Gourmet while I was still living in the SF Bay Area. My friends already loved my jambalaya and requested that I cook it fairly often. When I saw this new recipe from "The Frug", I thought I would give it a try. It started by pickling some pork, as follows:

Ingredients for 2 servings:
1/2 c  Mustard seed
1 tb Celery seed
2 tb Louisiana hot sauce
1 qt White vineger
1  Bay leaf
1 tb Kosher salt
12  Peppercorns
6  Cloves of garlic
2 lb Boneless pork butt

Combine everything except the pork in a stainless steel pan and boil for 3 Min. Cool and place in a refrigerator container (plastic, glass or stainless steel) and add the pork which you cut into 2" pcs. Stir to remove bubbles. Cover and refrigerate for 3 days. Use for making Red Beans and Rice.

On the second day the refrigerator began to smell nasty. So I went out, just in case, and got alternate meat for my Jambalaya (sausage, chicken, shrimp, clams) because I had a BAD feeling. When I took it out on the day I was to cook the meal and opened the container, it smelled rank. I tasted it and it tasted rank. So I used my usual Jambalaya meats instead and everybody was happy.

But I let everybody smell that nasty pickled pork, and not one of those seven people thought it was even close to edible. So, in my experience, pickled onions in moderation are fine, but no amount of pickled pork is acceptable.

[Rudy Taylor]

Many years ago we had some Jewish friends from Kansas City who stayed in our
community while they directed our centennial pageant. When they heard that I loved
corned beef, they decided to make some for us ... from scratch.  And, I swear, 35 years
later, I can still smell that stuff in our house.

They bought a nice brisket and went into a two-day process of pickling, seasoning and
massaging that piece of meat, and when they finished cooking it .... mmmmmmmm, was
it ever good!

But the smell lingers. Of course, my wife says the same about me. And I ain't even pickled.

[kdfrawg]

There was a wonderful locally-owned grocery store right across Hillsdale Boulevard from the horse racing track in San Mateo, CA. Frank, the owner, did all of his own meat. As a part of that, he corned his own beef, using really good cuts of meat, in two old Coke coolers, the kind where the soda bottles sat in cold water. Without going to a good Jewish deli, I can't get anything that is even close to that good. Boy, I miss that place!

[Mom70x7]

SOME pickled onions are good.

One of our favorites are "wilted" cucumbers and onions.

Peel and slice them, soak them in salt water, then soak them in vinegar water.
(I prefer the two-step process, although some people combine the steps.)

They're delicious.

[kdfrawg]

I love those, too, Mom70x7! They are delicious! Although I have not made one in a year or so, I still love wilted letuce, via the hot bacon grease method. It's even better with spinach.  Yum! I looked up the betty crocker recipe:

Cut up one head of lettuce. Cut up 5 to 6 slices bacon into small pieces. Fry brown. Put bacon chips on lettuce. Pour off some of the bacon grease if desired. To bacon grease, add 1/4 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water. Bring to boil. Boil to thick and pour over lettuce. Salt and pepper.

[emptynest]

Maybe this receipe---along with a few others posted on here---will show up at the forum get-together in September.  Should we make that a challenge?   At the top of the list should be the Methodist potatoes made by someone other than a Methodist.

[flo]

  This Baptist still plans to bring Methodist Potatoes.