Greetings Gastronauts! This is Keef Cooks,
I'm Keef and today I'm going to show you
something that is absolutely wonderful
with some cheese and a bit of salad - or
maybe some ham or whatever - a chunky
vegetable pickle that most people know
as Branston Pickle.
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I had a request for
this from RetroGeet - and also me old
mate Brenda Rigdon said she likes
Branson so yeah! And a shoutout for
Oliver Nixon who asked for one. So there you
go. Right, ploughman's pickle, dead easy
let's do it! OK ingredients for the
pickle - lots and lots of them! I've got
one of these - it's either a turnip or a
swede or a rutabaga - a couple of medium
onions, three carrots, two celery sticks,
a large courgette, two small tart apples - or
one bigger one - three cloves of garlic,
150 grams of brown sugar - actually
that's demarara - a dark brown sugar would
probably be better. About 100 grams of
dates, 180 mils of malt vinegar - this
stuff - and also 1/2 teaspoon each of
ground cloves, ground nutmeg, and chili
flakes and one teaspoon of sweet paprika.
So it's actually a really easy thing to
make but we've got to prep all of these
veggie things which involves, y'know,
cutting, peeling where appropriate and
dicing into about a centimeter cubes - a bit
under half an inch. So Branston Pickle -
which we're not actually trying to copy
in any way shape or form - was first made
in 1920 in the village of Branston near
Burton-On-Trent in Staffordshire. Isn't that
interesting? For the company Crosse
& Blackwell. So in a few years time it's
going to be the centenary of
this stuff and well, that'll be fun - a whole
year of jubilation and pickle!
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Right, I've done half of it -  this is hard work and as
you chop all the bits - throw 'em in the pan
Right, so that's all of the big horrible
thing in and let's do the onions. And
when I've got the carrots and the onions
done and in the pan, I'm going to top it up
with water and the vinegar and set it
off cooking, because those will take
longer than the other things to cook.
OK, so I've got my carrots, my turnip
and my onions, and the vinegar also.
So now I'm going to bring this to the boil.
We're going to need enough water to cover it
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That's not enough. That was a monster
turnip I put in there - so I'll put some more
vinegar in, and some more water, and also
I can add the spices...
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...and the sugar. OK, give those a bit of a
stir and I've got my celery nicely chopped up
- put that in and I just mince in the garlic.
almost the last couple of things I've
got my courgette - I hope this is
all going to fit in the pan...
and my chunks of apple
So the courgette and the apple will sort
of just disappear into mush, but they'll
leave flavour behind. Well, the courgette
won't because courgettes don't taste
of anything - in my experience. Sorry, for
my
American fans - courgettes = zucchini. And
finally, ze dates - dates - datiles.
And just stir it all together. It's on
low heat and put a lid on that and let
it simmer for about half an hour. But I'll
probably check it and stir it now and
again just to make sure it doesn't stick.
And look at this - monster pile of peelings for
the compost. Yes! Right, the pickle is
chugging away - I've had the lid off for a
time to let some of the water evaporate.
but this has probably got enough
liquid in and I don't want to reduce it
too much. The blobs of stuff in it are
still too distinct. We need a lot more
mushiness going on, and hopefully from
somewhere, some dark brown-ness. This is
very - it's very light-coloured compared to
what it's supposed to be. Hmm. So I'll
just let that go for however long it
takes. Now I've got some jars which I will use
to put the pickle in when it's done, but
they need to be sterilized.
So I've got a big pan of water coming to
the boil and you need to put these in
for at least 10 minutes - and the lids.
Righty-ho - making some progress.
Now, I've been boiling this a little bit more
rapidly and I've added a tablespoon of
black treacle - molasses - just to darken
the colour really. So that's looking a bit
more like it. I think if I'd used dark
Muscovado sugar instead of - what did I use - demarara -
it would have been darker, but anyway
let's have a taste...
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Yes sweet-and-sour, yum, just like it's
meant to be. So all I'm doing now I'm
just boiling it down till it gets to the
right kind of thick and gloopy consistency
OK, I reckon that'll do, so I'll uh... so I'll
just spoon it into the sterilized jars,
and then when they cool down a bit put
the lid on and stick it in the fridge. I
wouldn't bother trying to use it for
about a week, really. It's the kind of
thing that improves flavour over time and
y'know, because there's so much vinegar
and sugar in this - it is a pickle - it is
a
preserve, so it'll last a long time in
the fridge. OK so a few days have
passed and here's my pickle. You might
find it looks a bit dry on the top but
just give it a shake or turn it upside
down, just get the liquid flowing. Anyway,
tasty tasty. Bit of cheese, dollop of pickle...
It's delicious actually. Really mm-hmm - a
little bit of sweet - little bit sour and
really, really tasty! So there you go
ploughman's, not Branston, pickle
really tasty, really easy, you might as
well do it!
And that's that, I hope you enjoyed it
now please do the usual - likes, shares,
comments, subscriptions, donations,
patronage - all that good stuff -
or just some of it! And thank you for
watching and see you next time.
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