Hi everyone this video is about pickles, but moreover
it's about keeping my promise to you guys
I've said it before, and this is a really big promise: Whatever you ask
me to do, if i'm able to do it, if I know the recipe, if I can master it
I'm going to do it. And many of you have asked for pickles this time.
Each of these are very valuable and I asked what kind of pickles can I do
this time around.
So I'm going to make three different pickles, but actually what I'm going to
do is to tell you the underlying mathematics
behind making pickles. This week we're going to make pickles
from green peppers, green plums, and cucumbers.
To start with, you can make pickles almost out of everything.
The important thing is that it shouldn't be moldy or
have ruins at the side. It should be fresh. And pickling is mostly about the brine
To prepare the brine: For a liter of
water, water should be nice and tasty,
So I'm going to give you a magical equation for
the mixture. For a liter of water, we need and it's
about this big, I'll give the measurements in cups in the
recipe section below, I'm not so good with it. 80 mls of vinegar this time
this is apple cider vinegar, but it can be
grapes, it can be anything and three tablespoons of
rock salt, or sea salt. If you have a problem with a lot of
saltiness, you can decrease the salt to two tablespoons.
But if you make it less than two, it will not be able to preserve itself.
The vinegar I have right here, because it's organic and it has the `mother` vinegar at the bottom etc.
It's not see-through. But if you make it from a see-through vinegar
It will look even better. So I stir the mixture to dissolve the salt.
When it's ready, I put it aside. Now I'm beginning with cucumbers. We have
a saying "Çiçeği burnunda" Which literally translates to "the flower is on its nose" (Literally: Brand new, fresh) like
"Çiçeği burnunda" meaning very young very fresh, so the freshness of the
cucumber is on its nose like this. So I'm
unfortunately cutting it off, because it might ruin the entire bottle, and I have like
few incisions like this and I washed them
already. Why do I make some holes like this?
It's so that the brine instills itself better.
And I'm going to put first, it will be hard make a
round thing like this.
While making pickles, it's important to squeeze
everything together, so it takes up space and it's better preserved, so I make it
like a circle like this. Does it always have to be like in this
great shape, or as a whole, or can I like slice it. Of course you can
slice it. Normally it's not good for it to be sliced
and whole in the same jar, because, for
example, the top will mature faster than the bottom, but I
wanted to show you that it's possible, because
sometimes there are so many questions and I say, like, I should have answered
this in the video. Before I fill in everything what I'm
going to do for the brine to be fermented, we need
something. It could be either pieces of real sourdough bread or some
chickpeas like this, five will be enough I'm throwing in these chickpeas they'll
probably fall down and also some garlic
for the whole thing three garlic cloves will be more than enough. Garlic is
in this case in a way a preserver and it'll also
give it a great taste, so it's important to squeeze them in nicely.
If this was for example a German one we would probably put a bit of sugar in the brine
We would probably add dill and coriander seeds,
but this is simple and the beauty lies
in its simplicity. It's very important for everything to be
sunken in the brine, like this. So it's almost full now.
I'm closing the lid the lid should be new
or shouldn't have anything, like, if there's a
bump somewhere or a crack, it will let the air in
And then it will ruin it, so, but today I had this one
tomorrow I'm going to buy new lids and then close it.
Basically it's very important, I wanted to tell you.
So the jar was sterilized, like, which means
I put it into hot water for 15 seconds and I took it out, and then
let it dry. Same thing for the lid. And my pickles are
ready now. These are going to go into a cupboard where, for example, it shouldn't
be on top of the oven why because there's heat
and meat will ruin it it should be below
20 degrees and a dark place. So somewhere you can
put and forget for a month, would be great for the pickle. And a
month later, you will be able to eat it. The classic cucumber is ready. For example
in the time of autumn, there are small
gherkins and different kinds of cucumbers that I
want to introduce you and we're going to do it hopefully then.
This you can do it any time you like. I want a little timeout from
the video I'm I think I'm making this a habit.
Here we have our guest Seda and we would be just having fun,
but instead now we're shooting this video, because
like there's some more things that I want to tell you. First off
you asked for the okra pickle. I wasn't
able to find okra that week, so I didn't include it in the video, but now
I've got some so I'm going to include it in the video.
So i have these okras here what I only did
was it has mustaches here I just cleaned those
If you have smaller ones than this, you wouldn't even need to cut off its stache.
This is a problem, I cut this part as well here.
And it goes in, I add all the okras if they were a little bigger I would like
put all of them in an orderly manner and
it would look great, but because these are too small, we don't
need to do it. Usually the pickling season is fall
Do you know why? Do you know why? What? You can pickle everything and you
can pickle it any time you want, but there's a season, like, mostly
it's done in the fall time, do you
know why? Two reasons. First reason is, like,
in the natural agriculture the sun's strength is not sufficient towards fall
so some of the tomatoes, melons, and peppers are there, but they're not
fully matured. Also the cucumbers. But not to throw them
away, it's a great way to save the summer veggies over to winter
The second reason is there is an hormone called
ethylene. It's the only hormone that is in the form of a gas. It's what matures these
vegetables. For example for the leaves of the trees
after a certain amount of mature time that hormone continues
and then it makes the leaf fall or the fruit to fall
And that's the maximization. And this ethylene
hormone shows itself on a more bright things
more than not so matured ones. So the ripening
is less in the fall time, because of the weather necessary so
it's a better time. Now I am squeezing them a bit more
normally it's hard to make okra because it's
mucus gives it that unique texture
if you don't cook it really well. Anyways, so, it's
easy for these okras to get soft. And to prevent that, I have a small grandma
trick. In this one, I didn't put chickpeas,
because what chickpeas were doing was helping the pickle develop
sooner, but now I want it to be slow. I want it in a
more controlled way. And second thing, you know we want
no air in this, so I have a trick. These are grape leaves
from Bahar's house. Maybe we make `dolma` with these one day.
Any wine leaf will do for this reason. I'm going to
push these in and then cover it with these leaves
why these leaves have tannin in them and tannin helps
the crunchiness in pickles. So nice trick huh? Bahar- "I'm in shock so it can't be bay leaves?"
Bay leaves or probably there are leaves that I don't know
which has tannin in them but these are because of the cooking I know that they
have. So I'm closing them, here it is. Like when someone comes to her house, you may serve these as a
great appetizer and a cool one as well. Guys I would like to
make a simile to you in order to understand the power of the pickles
and how you can use pickles in various parts of your food to make it
even tastier. And this simile comes from our high
school education. You remember the anatomy of tongue. It has different sections where
sweetness, saltiness, bitterness, and sourness are sorted. When we are kids,
we just like sweet and salty stuff.
Then the sourness and the bitterness come in later as more of acquired tastes I should say.
As we get older, we like those combinations, we get to understand them better.
Some of the people I know who have never acquired that higher taste. So
it takes a wondrous spirit, a bit of search, a bit of courage...
a bit of courage, definitely! Think about each various tastes
as a musical instrument, let's say, a violin is playing salty food is there,
and it's really amazing
it's really good, but suddenly the piano kicks in.
What happens something else starts to add to the music. There's harmony in all of that.
So with saltiness, there comes sirens, like the pickle,
and it's like the two go hand in hand.
Your mouth starts to water even thinking about it.
Then what happens? Another instrument comes in.
The third one let's say is the bitterness then our pickle is suddenly
chilly and wow, it becomes really really nice.
So all the instruments there kick in at the same time
and it becomes this
big philharmonic orchestra
That's how if you get into harmony of these
four different tastes, also together with the
umami, and that's another story I want to tell you later on,
it becomes beautiful, it becomes timeless, and unforgettable so you can make
unforgettable food using specifically the bitter and sour things and adding
them to food, and you see, you'll rock.
Same thing about the peppers. You can make from
small peppers, like, little tiny really hot ones.
Big ones, like this, you can mix and match so that
these are not hot, but then they become slightly little hot, and it is always great.
This week, because there were lots of rains in Turkey
I wasn't able to find good peppers and nothing spicy really,
so I wasn't able to make a video for you using those
Because I want the taste we also at the bottom I'm adding
a few of the garlic cloves here, like five chickpeas. If you add more chickpeas what
happens is it gets fermented too much and then it
might literally shoot off the lid when you're trying to open it. So it's very important
I'm going to squeeze in as much as possible. I'm not going to add
like one which has scars like this. I'm going
to use it with the scrambled eggs, or menemen or something. I don't want
to give the chance for it to get ruined. I add the brine so when I push it let's
go to the end so this is also
ready.
Last but not least, it's very easy to make
maybe it has a different name than plums, if there is
i'm going to beep it. So in the middle I add the garlic
the chickpeas. There's this big discussion in Turkey
about whether pickling is better with brine from vinegar or
or lemon juice. A mixture would also be good, you can add,
instead of vinegar, you can add a bit of lemon. I'm going to tell you
the exact measure. At the same time if you are okay with
eating vinegar, but not like these classic ones, if they're a bit smelly and
etc to you. Then you can use white wine vinegar
Because, actually when vinegar is first
made to be wine and then it was switched to vinegar,
it's always tastier. Vinegar's not so appreciated smell
goes away. So this is green plums, green peppers, cucumbers. All three are
here. The other things you can do is, this is a rather old one white
cabbage, melon. This is green tomatoes
and this is little hot peppers, and these are Turkish style
peppers. This is open, I already started to use it. So these are very hot peppers as well.
These are some of the things you can make and we're going to make them as I
said around October I'm going to tell more
details about pickle making but this is like an introductory day.
I hope you liked it, if any questions
please write them down in the comment section below. And if you make Turkish kind of pickles
I'll kiss you. Okay, please tell me so take good care
Love you so much I'm so happy that you're around.
Until next one!