Sunshine in a Jar Piccalilli

I find most shop bought Piccalilli too sharp and the flavour of malt vinegar and mustard powder to overwhelming. My mother mentioned the same problem. We both love the idea of it, and have even had good piccalilli, but rarely find it. I’m vegetarian, so want my pickles to go with cheese not pork pie, but the recipients of my preserving often aren’t so it had to be good for them too.

I decided to try out the Piccallili recipe from here, because River Cottage have lovely stuff generally, and because it didn’t give precise ingredients. For my beg I chose:

• red and white breakfast radishes
• cauliflower
• shallots
• courgettes
• Green Delizia tomatoes
• three types of sweet peppers

I used fresh tumeric as well as powdered (and have only now got the yellow off my skin and nails), used sweet cider vinegar and replaced the honey witht he last of the golden syrup from baking the cake in my last post.

The recipe was easy enough to follow, although I made the spice paste too thick and had to work out some lumps in it. It did make the entire house smell, though. This is a recipe to be made on days when you can open all the doors and windows. It was made quite quickly too – apart from leaving the veg to salt and drain overnight it was done and in jars in 15 minutes.

I know it *smelled* very nice, but I won’t have any idea how it tastes until Easter as it takes 6 weeks to properly develop. But just look at these beautiful jars of bright yellow sauce and crunchy veg! They look like I put summer into jars. I’ll let you know how they turn out