This year, I have grown some cucumbers for the first time. I am not sure what variety they are, the seeds were given to me by a colleague. They are long and thin, like a regular salad cucumber, but not quite as enormous as what you see in a supermarket. Apparently, you have to pick them before they start to turn yellow or they can become bitter.

I can’t say that I eat a lot of cucumber, so I had to look across the pond for inspiration for what to do with them. I plumped for bread and butter pickles, so called due to the fact the pickled cucumbers were eaten with bread and butter as a cheap lunch during the great depression in the USA. This is a simple and easy way to preserve that excess of cucumbers from the garden.

If you search on the web, you will find plenty of recipes that list the individual pickling spices, but I decided to use a packet from the supermarket. Normally, I would prefer to make my own spice blend, but I did this simply because it would have worked out much more expensive to buy all the dried spices separately, especially since some I wouldn’t use for anything else.

Bread and Butter Pickles

Print recipe

• Print with main photo
• Print text only

Ingredients

• 4-5 Small Cucumbers (about 850g)
• 1 Medium Onion (thinly sliced)
• 3 tablespoons Salt
• 375ml Apple Cider Vinegar
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Pickling Spices

Directions

1.	Slice the cucumbers into thin slices. Place in a bowl with the onions and cover in the salt. Toss to ensure all are evenly coated
2.	After about 3 hours, rinse the cucumber thoroughly in a colander under a running tap. Pat dry of excess water with kitchen towels
3.	In a saucepan, add the vinegar, spices and sugar, and over a medium heat, heat the mixture until the sugar is dissolved
4.	Put the cucumber into a sterile kilner jar, then pour over the pickling liquid
5.	Leave to cool to room temperature, then place in the fridge
6.	It is ready to eat after about 3 days, but will get better if you leave it a week