Pickled Plums with Bay Leaves and Cloves

Name: Pickled Plums: Sweet and Tangy Recipe for Winter Jars
Prep time: 5 d
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 5 d 1 h
Cuisine: Caucasian cuisine
Ingredients: Plums 10 kg; Sugar 3 kg; Wine vinegar, 6% 0.5 l; Bay leaves 40 g; Cloves 20 g

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5 days 1 h

The plum is one of the most important fruit trees in temperate countries. Experts believe plums reached us from Italy and, by another route, from the Caucasus. The plum itself is a hybrid of wild cherry plum and blackthorn. It was domesticated in deep antiquity and first grown in the Caucasus and Asia Minor.

I know from experience that you can’t eat a lot of fresh plums, your stomach will act up. But all kinds of homemade preserves and plum brandy are always relevant, always in demand, and very tasty. Plums are put up in many ways: jam, preserves, compote, prunes. They’re dried, salted, smoked, frozen and pickled. And then there are all sorts of sauces, seasonings and dressings.

Pickled plums are a wonderful side for any dish. Although, come to think of it, they’re more of a nice change for the side, an extra that gives it some zing. In my opinion, pickled plums are first and foremost an excellent snack to go with a drink, in the literal sense. Recipes for pickled plums vary, but they’re always delicious.

Usually it’s fruit, vegetables, mushrooms, fish and meat that get pickled. But fruit is pickled very often too, mostly plums, cherries and so on. Of course, plums can’t match pickled cucumbers for tradition, but let’s not oversimplify. Everyone knows how to pickle onions, but pickled plums are something you absolutely have to learn to make.

By the way, plums don’t ripen year-round, so it’s worth pickling them for winter without putting it off.

Pickled plums are a wonderful side for any dish, or rather a nice change for the side. Plums make an unbeatable snack.

Ingredients

10–15 half-liter jars

Plums 10 kg
Sugar 3 kg
Wine vinegar, 6% 0.5 l
Bay leaves 40 g
Cloves 20 g

Step-by-step recipe

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Plums and spices

Picture this: you, in a velvet robe and slippers with a white collar, smoking a hookah on the balcony, admiring the trees and the stray dogs. On a mahogany table inlaid with ivory stands a silver tray with a frosted crystal glass of ice-cold vodka, and on a Chinese porcelain saucer lies a pickled plum speared on a golden two-pronged fork… How about that?
Be sure to sort through the plums and throw out any damaged ones, this is important (!). For pickling, it’s best to use the plums we’re used to calling Italian prune plums, and not the ripest ones. Better if they aren’t overripe and are a bit firm. That way they won’t turn to mush while pickling.
In Japan, pickled (salted) plums, umeboshi (梅干), are a seasoning used in Japanese cuisine. They’re small, pink, salted plums. Japanese scientists found a substance in umeboshi that can stop the growth of the H1N1 virus. In Vietnam a very similar seasoning is called xí muội or ô mai. In South Asia it’s known as amla pickle and is made from Indian gooseberries. In Mexico the product is known as chamoy and is usually made from apricot or tamarind with salt and dried chili.
In the Caucasus, plums are made into tkemali sauce and tklapi, a must for a proper kharcho soup (made with pork). Cherry plum is actually a kind of plum, even its direct ancestor, so tkemali sauce isn’t necessarily made from wild cherry plums; it’s often made from ordinary plums.
Plums don’t have enough fruit acid of their own to pickle in their “own juice.” That’s why you need vinegar to pickle plums. Grape vinegar is best. The acidity of the finished marinade should be about 2% to stop microorganisms from growing. Still, it’s better to either sterilize the finished product or heat it to 75–80 °C, that is, pasteurize it.
Pull off the stems. And of course, wash the plums, trying to rub off the bluish bloom. There’s no need to prick the plums.
Get a container ready for pickling. It’s very important that the container is made of a material that doesn’t react with acid: plastic, porcelain, glass. An oak barrel is best of all. But at home, a large plastic tub will do just fine. How to layer: just pour the plums in. Cover the bottom of the container with plums and scatter bay leaves and cloves on top. Add another layer of plums, then bay leaves and cloves again. And so on. The top layer should be plums.
By the way, at first glance the amount of bay leaves and cloves may seem excessive. That’s a mistake. In the end, I was even sorry I didn’t add more. But, as they say, there’s no accounting for taste…

Syrup marinade

Bring the vinegar to a boil in a pot. Add the sugar to the boiling vinegar, preferably in batches of 1–2 cups. Stir until dissolved.
Physically, it’s impossible to dissolve 3 kg of sugar in 0.5 liters of liquid. You’ll end up with a thick syrup with sugar crystals in it. Again, don’t let that scare you. The fruit will release juice very soon, and everything will be as it should!
Pour the boiling syrup marinade over the plums. At first the marinade won’t even cover them. That’s how it should be.

Five days of pickling

Next, you’re in for a simple but extremely engaging 5-day routine. Twice a day, morning and evening, repeat step 5.
Drain all the liquid from the plum container into a large pot.
Gently stir the plums with a big spoon, or better yet, just with your hand. Bring the drained liquid to a boil and pour it back over the plums. By day 2, or day 3 at most, there will be enough liquid to cover the plums completely.
Keep the plum container covered with a bag or plastic wrap. First, to keep debris out. Second, to keep insects out, especially wasps (!). Third, to stop the family from snacking on the plums. Pickled plums are edible on the very first day, and delicious. So by the time you get to canning, there may be nothing left to can.

Packing into jars

At the end of the fifth day, drain all the marinade into a pot and bring it to a boil.
Pack the pickled plums into sterilized jars, making sure to add bay leaves and cloves — the ones that were pickled with the plums.
Using a cup, pour boiling marinade over the plums in each jar. Right up to the neck!
Cover with a lid and seal tightly. Turn the jars upside down so they stand on their lids. Wrap them all in a wool or quilted blanket and leave them until completely cool.
Store jars of pickled plums in a cool place. And every now and then, take out a jar, open it and enjoy.

Calories and macros

122 kcal

100 g

Protein0.5 g2% of kcal
Fat0.3 g2% of kcal
Carbs29.8 g96% of kcal

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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To Get It Right

Which plums to use

For pickled plums, Italian prune plums are best: firm, not the ripest, a bit hard. Cracked plums are 100% overripe: if they don’t fall apart, that’s fine, but don’t cram them into the jar or you’ll end up with jam. The riper the plums, the less they wrinkle. Juicy yellow plums with thin skins will almost certainly crack under hot marinade, so try 0.5–1 kg first.

Only with the pits in

Don’t pickle plum halves or pitted plums this way: the flesh is too soft to have boiling marinade poured over it 10 times, so you’ll most likely get jam, and the marinade will turn cloudy. It’s easier to remove the pits when serving. No need to prick the plums either: just sort them, pull off the stems and wash them.

Which vinegar

Pickled plums need natural 6% wine vinegar, white or red, it makes no difference; don’t dilute it. “Grape vinegar” in the text means the same thing: vinegar made from wine. The main thing is that it’s natural, not distilled white vinegar.

4% vinegar: use about 0.75 l instead of 0.5 l so the marinade stays just as acidic.
Apple cider vinegar works, but the taste will be different.
Regular 9% distilled vinegar works, but the taste won’t be as good.
Balsamic gives a sharper taste, an acquired one.

Don’t add more vinegar: 0.5 l is enough for 10 kg of plums.

If the sugar sits at the bottom and there’s little liquid

The first 1–2 times the sugar under the plums will sit at the bottom and may set into a crust until they release their juice; that’s how it should be. After the third time there’ll be plenty of liquid. Don’t add water on its own, so you don’t lower the acidity. You can melt the sugar from the bottom over low heat together with the drained liquid. If the marinade still doesn’t cover even half the plums on day 4, the plums are most likely underripe: in that case I just added some water and vinegar.

White film on the plums

Most likely it’s a yeast film on the plums sticking out above the marinade; it happens while there’s little liquid. Stir the plums every time you drain the marinade so the top ones end up at the bottom. But if the film is fuzzy, colored or smells of mold, throw those plums out.

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Questions and answers

Do pickled plums need to be sterilized?

The jars do, they’re sterilized in advance, but the plums in the jars aren’t boiled: they’re covered with boiling marinade, sealed, turned upside down and wrapped in a blanket until cool. The marinade is acidic enough; in many years not a single jar has spoiled, even though I keep them in a cupboard. If the jars will be stored somewhere warm or you want to play it safe, pasteurize half-liter jars for 10–15 minutes at 80–85 °C.

How much sugar and vinegar for 3 kg of plums?

Everything is based on 10 kg of plums, 3 kg of sugar and 0.5 l of vinegar. For 3 kg of plums: 900 g of sugar, 150 ml of vinegar, 12 g of bay leaves and 6 g of cloves.

What do you eat pickled plums with?

As a snack with meat, especially roast pork, duck or shashlik, and with cheese. And just on their own, with a shot of ice-cold vodka, like at the start of the recipe.

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