Pucker up! It's National Pickle Day

Sweet, dilled, bread-and-butter, half-sour or wicked hot (like those Tabasco pickles), it doesn't matter how they're seasoned, I flat-out love pickles. The crunchy-tart-cured cukes are the not-so-secret ingredient in my favorite potato salad. They take sandwiches and burgers to exciting new places. I don't know about you, but I won't even bother with a tuna sammie if I can't pair it with a pickle.

Lately, I've been working on perfecting a different kind of pickle. Pickled peppers. I was inspired by Molly Wizenberg's pickled pepper recipe in a recent issue of Bon Appetit. It's so simple. The biggest challenge is finding the colorful sweet, hot peppers now that the growing season has passed. But I bet that recipe would work even with jalapenos.

Those peppers have been featured on the menu at Delancey, the restaurant Wizenberg's husband, Brandon Pettit opened this summer in Seattle. I've been making pizza at home just so I have an excuse to break out the spicy pickled peppers. Which are also great on tuna sandwiches and salads and, heck, straight out of the jar.

One minor adjustment I made to the original recipe was to swap out the chopped shallots for a generous helping of pearl onions. Because I have equal amounts of mad love for peppers and onions. Man, my mouth is watering just thinking about that quickly disappearing jar of pucker powered pickled peppers.

I'm planning on toasting to National Pickle Day by breaking into the green beans I pickled in August. Going to dunk one into a fiery Bloody Mary and drink to the age-old tradition of pickling. Long may we brine!

--Leslie Kelly

Comments

[Christopher Calandro on November 15, 2009 at 10:24 AM]

I wish Claussen would introduce a spicy pickle to their line. Because that'd be awesome.