Pickled Hot Peppers

Preparing the peppers and herbs

1. Choose the peppers. Pickled hot peppers will be perfect if the peppers are fully ripe: deep red, with no green or brown streaks. Long pods, not necessarily straight, with green stems. Ideally, picked straight from the plant just before pickling.

   

2. Prepare the herbs and garlic. Pick all the leaves off the cilantro, mint and dill sprigs and remove the tough stems; they aren’t used in the marinade. They’re coarse and pretty much inedible even after pickling. Don’t chop the herbs either; it’s better to use the leaves whole.

   

   Separate the garlic into cloves without peeling them. By the way, the pickled garlic cloves will make a great appetizer too, alongside the pickled hot peppers. Really, you can add even more garlic if you like.

3. Wash the pepper pods and pierce them right through with a thin knife near the stem, otherwise air will stay trapped inside during pickling. Put the pods in a pot and cover with boiling water. Leave the peppers covered for 5 minutes, then drain. Pour boiling water over them again; in all, repeat 3–4 times. The peppers should be blanched, not boiled. It’s important that the pods turn soft but by no means fall apart into mush.

   

   You can do it differently. Put the peppers in a ceramic pot, which holds heat very well, and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and cook the peppers for 2–3 minutes. Then turn off the heat and leave the peppers covered for 15 minutes.

The jar and the marinade

1. Meanwhile, wash a glass jar of the right size: all the peppers need to fit, with a little room left for the garlic, herbs and marinade. Be sure to scald the jar with boiling water from the kettle for at least 5 minutes, or sterilize it any way you like.

3. Make the marinade. Pour 1½ cups of cold water (300 ml) into a saucepan. Add to the water:

   • 1 tsp salt (6 g);
   • 2 tsp sugar (9 g);
   • 2 tsp coriander seeds (4 g);
   • 5–6 black peppercorns;
   • 2–3 allspice berries;
   • 1–2 cloves;
   • 2–3 bay leaves;
   • all the garlic cloves;
   • all the prepared herbs.

   Bring the marinade to a boil and pour in 100 ml grape vinegar, made from white or red grapes. Better not to use plain distilled vinegar, or the aroma will be lost. Boil the marinade for 2–3 minutes, then take the pan off the heat and let the marinade stand for 15 minutes.

   

Packing the jar

1. Put all the herbs and garlic from the marinade at the very bottom of the sterilized jar. Carefully lift the blanched hot peppers out of the pot, trying not to damage them, and lay them in the jar. Blanched pods bend easily, so packing them isn’t hard. When all the pods are in, pour the marinade into the jar, making sure all the coriander seeds, peppercorns, allspice and cloves end up in the jar.

   

2. Gently press the pepper pods down inside the jar with the blunt end of a fork, trying to keep them whole and squeeze out as much air as possible. Top up the jar with marinade right to the brim, as much as fits. Any leftover can be discarded. Seal the jar with a lid immediately. Wrap the jar of pickled hot peppers in a warm blanket and leave until completely cool.

   

3. Pickled hot peppers can be stored outside the fridge. Jars with screw-on lids are very handy: you can keep an “everyday” jar in the fridge and take peppers out as needed.