{"id":4966,"date":"2016-06-05T18:36:32","date_gmt":"2016-06-05T16:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/?p=4966"},"modified":"2016-06-19T12:35:27","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T10:35:27","slug":"pickled-onions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/pickled-onions\/","title":{"rendered":"Pickled Onions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few years ago I got into a pickled onion habit, a jar wouldn&#8217;t last more than a couple of weeks and it was getting expensive.<\/p>\n<p>What better solution then than to make my own?\u00a0 This little post is an\u00a0<span class=\"st\" data-hveid=\"54\">aide\u2013m\u00e9moire<\/span> <span class=\"st\" data-hveid=\"54\">for me and a guide for anybody else that fancies a go.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_4967\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4967\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pickled-onion-things.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4967\" title=\"Pickled onion things.\" src=\"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pickled-onion-things-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Pickled onion things.\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" data-popupalt-original-title=\"null\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pickled-onion-things-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pickled-onion-things-768x432.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pickled-onion-things.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pickled-onion-things-150x84.jpg 150w, http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/pickled-onion-things-400x225.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-4967\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pickled onion things.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3>So what do you need?<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>A bag of baby onions, 2kg bag (Mr Veg)<\/li>\n<li>Brown spirit vinegar, 2l (Spar sells it in 2l bottles)<\/li>\n<li>Honey, 300g<\/li>\n<li>Pickling spice, 1.5 packets depending how strong you like it (Robinsons)<\/li>\n<li>Salt, 75g<\/li>\n<li>Large wide jars, 750g mayonnaise jars work well. Small jars work less well as packing efficiency is reduced, especially if your onions are rotund.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>And what do you need to do?<\/h3>\n<p>Not wanting to plagiarise more than necessary follow the steps <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbcgoodfood.com\/recipes\/1826697\/pickled-onions\">here<\/a>, with the following notes based on my experience:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>What it says.<\/li>\n<li>What it says.<\/li>\n<li>What it says, plus:\n<ol>\n<li>Sterilise the jars by boiling them and the lids in a large pot for several minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Add about a tablespoon of pickling spice to each jar (although <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oldfashionedfamilies.com\/english-style-pickled-onions\/\">this website<\/a> says it should be added to the vinegar while you are heating it).<\/li>\n<li>Experiment with chilli, garlic and other flavourful things.<\/li>\n<li>Fill the jars so the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Meniscus\">meniscus is convex<\/a> before putting the lid on.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li>Enjoy.<\/li>\n<li>With cheese and crackers.<\/li>\n<li>Or corned beef and HP sauce sandwiches.<\/li>\n<li>On their own whenever you feel like it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Humphrey Lyttelton and his Band 1954 The Onions (Les Oignons) (Live)\" width=\"840\" height=\"630\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ydhk8Z3TP9Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Under Construction<\/h3>\n<p>Just been preparing another batch and digging around in my photo collection, found a couple of pictures of work in progress.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-4966 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/pickled-onions\/naked-onions-ready-for-pickling\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/peeled-onions-for-pickling-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"Naked onions ready for pickling.\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-4977\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-4977'>\n\t\t\t\tNaked onions ready for pickling.\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/pickled-onions\/high-wastage\/'><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/onion-wastage-1-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"High wastage.\" aria-describedby=\"gallery-1-4976\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-4976'>\n\t\t\t\tHigh wastage.\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>For reference, a 2kg bag of onions reducing to 1.4kg is due to me procrastinating for weeks so that a lot of them went mouldy.<\/p>\n<p>That batch filled 3 x 750g mayonnaise jars while this batch (about 1.6kg yield from 2kg bag) filled 2 x 750g mayo jars and 5 x 400g jam jars.\u00a0 The jam jars have a lousy <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sphere_packing\">packing ratio<\/a> as they are only 2 onion diameters in diameter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few years ago I got into a pickled onion habit, a jar wouldn&#8217;t last more than a couple of weeks and it was getting expensive. What better solution then than to make my own?\u00a0 This little post is an\u00a0aide\u2013m\u00e9moire for me and a guide for anybody else that fancies a go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,121],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4966"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4966"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4978,"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4966\/revisions\/4978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.knottinbotswana.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}