I’ve long been very dubious about anything pickled. It’s a long story, all to do with being given heavily pickled beetroot for dreary year after dreary year at the convent where I was educated.

But the other week I was in the supermarket looking desperately for some sort of interesting vegetable…and I saw a whole crate of the most beautiful baby cucumbers. I’d made very gently pickled radishes before… and even beetroot… with some success. And while travelling in Poland I’d seen some cucumbers being pickled in a market, I’d been given one to taste and it was excellent… crunchy and will a bit more taste.

So I thought I’d have a go with these… the most interesting thing on the vegetable counter.

The experiment was well worth it! I found I could throw slices of these pickled cucumbers into all kinds of salads, and even into other things and they would add crunch and zing.

Pickled cucumbers by any other name

Pickled cucumbers can also be known as cornichons, gherkins… or, in the United States, just plain ‘pickles’. There are differences…. but there are disputes about those differences. The ingredients are mostly the same: The onions, the vinegar, some peppercorns, a source of sweetness, and a herb… using dill means they are sometimes called ‘dill pickles’.

The normal uses and some unexpected uses for gently pickled baby cucumbers

• A routine use of pickled cucumbers is, of course, on a charcuterie board… served with all kinds of salamis, hams, or with pâtés.
• Ottolenghi adds sweet pickled cucumbers to a salad of iceberg lettuces, parmesan, avocadoes, apples, nigella seeds, aubergine sauce (I use a ready-made Satay aubergine dip, slut that I am), almonds… pumpkin seeds etc… you get the idea…

• or try a salad of lambs’ lettuce, avocado, mackerel fillets, nigella seeds and the sliced pickled cucumber with a dressing of the oil from the mackerel tin, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt and pepper
• You can make an Olympic Ham and Cheese Zeppelin… worthy of any shotput contender.

• Or you can do very exciting things along the lines of what they get up to at the Black Axe Mangal. Giles Coren describes this much better than I can:

“Then a ‘Chinese boat’ of romaine lettuce drizzled with tahini and seasoned with lashings of Sichuan pepper and sweet pickled cucumber, then covered with chopped heart, cheeks and kidney, rather like a Caesar salad over which a bull had been sacrificed: by turns rich, nutty, sweet and mouth-numbing.”

Giles Coren, The Times, 12 December 2015

I’m afraid my version is very tame by comparison: shredded romaine, topped with a yoghurt and tahini dressing, some crushed Indonesian long pepper, a few sliced sweet, pickled cucumbers…. And the whole lot further topped with fried, chopped chicken livers, or with cooked lardons or chopped cooked bacon. This option is definitely not one for vegetarians.

Also good to know

• You can use these after a couple of hours or so. They will keep in the fridge for about a week… but they will start to go squishy.
• If you are lucky enough to find some more baby cucumbers a few days later, you can reuse the same brine.
• Ottolenghi suggests salting vegetables before pickling… rinse and pat dry before adding to the brine. This gives them extra crunch.

Saucy Dressings’ softly, gently pickled baby cucumbers

This would make enough for a salad for about six people.

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Ingredients

• 320ml/1⅓ cup water
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsps honey
• 160 ml/⅔ cup apple vinegar
• 250g/8 oz baby cucumbers…
• 1 big, rosy spring onion… or several small ones… or a shallot
• 4 or 5 bay leaves (these are not essential)
• 5 or 6 peppercorns… I use the long Indonesian catkins
• 1 tbsp freeze-dried dill – which makes these rather northern European; or you can use tarragon, which makes them Gallic

Instructions

1. Sterilise a large glass jar. Go here for how to sterilise jars.
2. In a large mixing bowl put the water, vinegar, honey, and salt. Mix well, ensure the honey and salt are both dissolved (I use a cappuccino whisk for this) in this brine.
3. Peel, halve or quarter the onion or shallot and slice very thin.
4. Place some (about a third) of the cucumbers in the cool, sterilised jar. Put in some bay leaves and peppercorns and a few of the sliced onions. Cover with some of the brine. Add another third or so of the cucumbers, add the rest of the onion, bay leaves and peppercorns, and top up again with the brine.
5. Add the remaining cucumbers, and top up with the rest of the brine. The brine should cover the cucumbers when they are held down with a spoon (they can tend to float). If it doesn’t, then add a little more apple vinegar.