Actually, you can pickle that.
I’m not suggesting you go to the outrageous lengths of pickling an old shoe or parking tickets (although that would be cathartic . . .), as depicted in the famous “Portlandia” sketch, but if you’re looking at any decent vegetable and wondering whether it can be pickled, the answer is probably yes.
At least it is if we’re talking about quick pickles, which allow you more flexibility with less work and less stress while still delivering the same enticing vinegar tang, crunchy texture and salty punch you’d get in more traditional pickling.
“There’s a lot more freedom with quick pickles,” says cookbook author Marisa McClellan, who, in her latest book, “The Food in Jars Kitchen: 140 Ways to Cook, Bake, Plate, and Share Your Homemade Pantry,” calls quick pickling her favorite way to pickle cucumbers.
In quick pickling, raw or minimally cooked ingredients are merely covered with brine and refrigerated, as opposed to traditional water-bath canning, which involves boiling in water to vacuum-seal a jar. The former makes it especially appealing to novices and people who like to improvise, because there’s less worrying about botulism, an illness caused by a bacteria toxin that proliferates in oxygen-free environments (the toxin-creating bacteria spores don’t like acid anyway, so pickles are already unfriendly to them). Quick-pickled foods are stored in the refrigerator with plenty of oxygen around — in other words, not favorable conditions for the toxin.