PICKLED CUCUMBERS.
230. Select the small sized cucumbers for pickling. They should be free from bruises and of a fine green color, for if they are old and yellow when picked from the vines they will never be green when they are pickled. Wash your cucumbers in cold water to remove all the sand and grit, put them in your pickling tub, make a brine of salt and water strong enough to float an egg. Pour enough of this brine over the cucumbers to cover them; spread over the top a coarse cloth and over this put the lid of the tub, which should be just large enough to fit inside and slip down so as to press on the cucumbers, put a weight on the lid to keep it in its place. Let them stand in the salt and water till they are perfectly yellow, which will be in about nine days. When they are quite yellow take them out, wash them in cold water and examine each one separately; if you should find any soft or bruised reject them, as they would be likely to spoil the others. Put them into a preserving kettle, cover them with hot water and vine or cabbage leaves, or if you have no leaves a clean coarse towel will answer as well. Put a plate over the top and stand them where they will keep hot, but not simmer, as that would ruin them. When they are perfectly green take them out of the water, drain them, and put in your jars first a layer of cucumbers, then a tea spoonful of whole allspice, half a dozen cloves, some strips of horse-radish, and half a tea spoonful of mustard seed, then more cucumbers, and so on till the jar is full. Pour in as much good vinegar as will cover them, with a tea spoonful of pulverized alum to each jar. In a day or two examine them, and fill up the jars with vinegar if the pickles have absorbed it so as to leave the top ones uncovered.
If you do not wish to pickle all your cucumbers at once, (and they are much better when they are freshly pickled,) take them out of the salt and water, wash and drain them. Put the brine over the fire, boil and skim it; let it stand to get cold; wash the pickle tub, wipe it dry, put the cucumbers into it; examine each one that no specked ones may be put in the tub, pour the cold brine over them, wash the cloth and lid of the tub and replace them as before. Cucumbers will keep in this way all winter. They may be pickled a few at a time whenever they are wanted. They must be soaked twenty-four hours in cold water before they are pickled; if they are so long in salt and water they imbibe too much salt to green them without soaking.
Gherkins are done in the same way.