June 09, 2007 04:40 PM EDT
(Updated: June 12, 2007 12:53 PM EDT)
One of the advantages of being friends and living close by to a tomato farmer is being the recipient of little care boxes every once in while.... I want to share with you what I made with some of the wonderful tomatoes and cucumbers I got from Richard sometime ago.
Components for the Refrigerator Pickles - Green Zebra tomatoes, onions, garlic, cucumbers and red hot, tiny Hawaiian Chile Peppers
I wanted to combine the cucumbers and the Green Zebra tomatoes from the farm with onions and garlic I already had. I added a few of the little red Hawaiian chile peppers from our garden. I started playing around with ideas for quick refrigerator pickles and combining several recipes, I came up with this one......
I was always told that before you preserve garlic in oil or use them when making pickles you needed to first blanch them in vinegar so that the natural sulphur will not cause them to turn green and harvest botulism. Some experts say that you only need to do it when preserving them in oil. I do it anyway, just to be on the safe side.
For an easy way to peel the garlic without damaging the cloves, I first take apart the whole head and drop the cloves in rapidly boiling water to blanch for about 3 to 5 seconds, stirring them constantly to make sure they just don't float to the top and lay there. Take them out of the boiling water with a skimmer and plunge them in cold water. After cutting the root end off, the skins will slip right off, leaving you with clean smelling hands!
Sonia's Refrigerator Pickles
6 cups white vinegar
4-1/2 cups sugar
2 Tablespoons Hawaiian sea salt - or any sea salt available
White peppercorns
3 large cucumbers, thinly sliced
3 medium onions, thinly sliced
3 medium Green Zebra or other green tomatoes
1 head of garlic, separated and peeled
Hawaiian red chile peppers - or your favorite chile peppers
Wash your glass containers and lids thoroughly and place them in a large pot of boiling water. Keep them on boil for a few minutes and turn the heat off but leave them in the hot water until ready to use. I like to use the canning jars with the glass lids that clamp on.
Process the garlic cloves by blanching them in the boiling water and peeling them. Set aside.
In a large stainless steel or non-reactive saucepan, combine vinegar, sugar and salt. Bring to a boil and boil gently for about 1 minute, or until sugar and salt are dissolved. Remove from heat and add the peeled garlic cloves and stir in the hot vinegar mixture for about 1 minute, then remove them with a skimmer and set aside.
While your jars are still hot, drain and wipe briefly with a clean cloth. Put a few peppercorns in the bottom and start layering your sliced cucumbers, onions and green tomatoes. Remember to stick a few of the processed garlic cloves and a few chile peppers here and there as you fill your jars. Add a few more peppercorns.
Wipe the rims thoroughly and seal them tightly.
When cool, store in refrigerator. They will keep for several weeks.
The finished pickles!
(c) Sonia R. Martinez - for this and more recipes please check my food and garden blog at
Sonia Tastes Hawaii
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Comments: 49
Kathleen, thanks, they are wonderful!
I've tried editing to separate the recipe ingredients list from the preparation and also separate each paragraph on the preparation, but they still run together......
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.........!
I'm hoping to find green tomatoes at the market next week, I may give this a try (after making my first fried green tomatoes of the season, of course).
Wish I had a bigger refrigerator so I could whip up a couple jars.
I like green fried tomatoes when they are done separately, but my exDH used to love them mushy, ugh. Not for me.
gaelyn, it is a great way to use early ones and can also be given as summer gifts. These pickles are so easy to make they are worth making multiple batches!
Mr. Bill, It doesn't take that much room for a couple of jars.........better yet, keep one and give one away..... BTW, I love your new icon.....
I have never been to Hawaii. Is it always hot there?
I hopw you enjoy it.
The sea salt, believe it or not, contains less sodium. I don't buy anything else, and even through we don't use much salt, when I do, it will be sea salt....Also, when recipes call for a finer salt, I still use sea salt, but grind it in a little grinder I have designated just for salt....it comes out powdery fine and sometimes the humidity affects it, so I grind small amounts at one time.
No, it is not always hot in Hawaii.... in fact, our average temperatures run 75-85 degrees on most given days.....yes, it will get hotter sometimes than that and also down into the low 60 sometimes, but that is not the norm. It is probably hotter where you live than here....We have the advantage of trade winds and swa breezes.
Dorine, I never wanted to chance it, so when I learned about the blanching in vinegar, I have continued to do it...I use the vinegar then in the pickles, so nothing is wasted.
I have friends in California growing Green Zebras, but one of them told me she can sometimes find them in the markets.
I can send you some little Hawaiian peppers. They are probably very similar to your Thai birds eye.
I dont cook at all with salt unless the recipe has to have it such as homemade breads. We dont even have a salt shaker on the table. We try to avoid it as much as possible. When we eat out, everything tastes too salty.
I do have some sea salt and now that I know it has less sodium. I will use it all the time. Thanks for the tip
Thank you Barbra....they are crispy!!!
btw, although I'm sorry your leg is messed up, it's nice having extra posts from you.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976749727
and it keeps very well for six months.
Those Hawaiian chiles look amazing! Wish I could taste 'em! They are screaming "eat me!" right through the computer screen! Are they really spicy or just medium? They look like the tabasco peppers I grew 2 summers ago. Or those Santakas? They look really good. Do you dry them? They would probably make an amazing pepperoncini to use in Spaghetti Aglio e Olio!
Thanks for passing on the recipe. I'll be keeping it for later use.
I think I have your address from the cookbooker's 'convention booklets', but send me an e-mail too, just in case.
Hope you enjoy the pickles!
How long does this great sounding recipe take? (excuse me while I go to the fridge for some store bought pickles),
Kathryn, I love dill pickles also, but there is something so satisfying about making pickles you can eat right away!!! It took me an hour at the most to peel and slice onions, chunk the tomatoes and boil the vinegar to blanch the garlic and put the whole thing together.....not bad at all...
Melissa, we love them! Hope you do too
Congratualtions on having this featured!
Thanks for letting me know about the feature. I didn't know.
Check here: http://www.ghorganics.com/GreenZebra.htm
Donald, they are that! ;-)
Great article as always, Sonia.
Thank you for reading so many of my articles on this day, John! You made my day!
Jenna, thank you! Your comment is very much appreciated!
What a beautifully written and photgraphed story~Inspiring and endearing~
Love, light, and blessings~
Mama T
The same thing can be done with a mixture of cauliflower or broccoli bits, carrot slices and green beans!