Grandma's pickled onions
 
 
This is an adaptation with a few tweaks of a much praised recipe for English style pickled onions aptly named "Grandma’s pickled onions" - a genuine old fashioned recipe. Preserved onions in malt vinegar make a classic accompaniment that will never get old. They are delicious with cheese and cold meats.
Author:
Recipe type: Pickle/Preserve
Cuisine: English
Ingredients
  • 1 cup of sea salt
  • 18 cups of water
  • 2 kg of fresh unpeeled small pickling onions (or shallots)
  • 8 Tbsp of brown sugar
  • 2L of malt vinegar (or apple cider vinegar)
  • 2 tsp of black peppercorns
  • 2 tsp of mixed or green peppercorns
  • 1 tsp of whole allspice
  • 6 bay leaves, crumbled
  • 16 whole cloves
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • 3 star anise
  • 4 small chilies
  • 5 cloves of garlic
Instructions
  1. First, wash and prepare the onions. Peel and trim the roots of the onions. Be careful of your eyes.
  2. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve ½ a cup of sea salt in 9 cups of water.
  3. Add the onions into the bowl, mix them through the solution and weigh them down gently with a plate that fits inside the bowl. Ensure that the onions are fully submerged. Stand for 8 to 12 hours (or overnight).
  4. Overnight, drain the onions from the bowl.
  5. Make a new salt and water solution (the same as before) in the bowl and add the onions back into the bowl with the solution. Weigh the onions down gently again with a plate. Stand for 2 days.
  6. Two days later, drain and rinse the onions twice.
  7. In a saucepan, add the sugar and vinegar. Excluding the chilies and garlic, gently crush the spices and add them to the solution. Bring to the boil and then let the solution cool down.
  8. Half fill the preserving jar with the onions. Then, add half of the spices from the saucepan/solution into the jar, on top of the onions.
  9. Fill the jar to the top with the remaining onions, and add the chillies and garlic into the jar.
  10. Then, gently pour the cooled sweet vinegar solution and the remaining spices from the saucepan into the jar, ensuring that the onions are completely covered.
  11. Cover the jar with the lid and seal tightly!
  12. Store the jar away in a cool dark place or refrigerator for at least 1 month before eating the onions. They are very addictive, so enjoy them in moderation. They will keep for at least 6 months, if you can resist them for that long!
Notes
You'll also need a large sterilized glass jar with a sealable lid to pickle the onions in. Alternatively, you can pickle the onions in several smaller jars.
Optional extra pickling spices include a tsp of "mixed pickling spices" (cinnamon, mustard seeds, coriander, allspice, pepper, dill seeds, fennel, cloves, bay leaves, etc.).
Recipe by Padaek at http://padaek.com/make-grandmas-pickled-onions/