Quick pickled onions with a twist.

These quick pickled onions are a favourite of ours. The recipe was inspired by both my Grandma, and my Mum. I know, cliche for these types of blogs posts, right? But it’s true, so what can I say. As a child, my Mum and Grandma always cooked from scratch, and Sunday always meant a roast dinner. Both would often make quick pickled onions and cucumber ready to go with the left over roast in the evening. The reason my recipe is inspired by both is that my Grandad has a sweet tooth, where as my Mum does not. To that end, my Grandma would add sugar to her pickle for my Grandad, but my Mum wouldn’t add any to her’s for us. I liked both recipes.
My Grandad was a huge influence in my love for gardening. As a child I spent many hours in the greenhouse with him. He’s also the reason I grow tomatoes, despite being very allergic to the plants. My garden is always full of blue and white lobelia because he grew it for us every year. My foraging skills also started with him when out walking our dogs.
The natural progression from foraging and growing your own food is cooking, and preserving it. Often we start by using the recipes within our family, or adapting them. This quick pickled onions recipe is my twist on our Sunday roast tradition.

What onions to use

Traditionally we’ve always used yellow skinned onions for this, but you can choose whatever onions you like. The one thing this quick pickled onions recipe is great for are those onions that need using up. Most especially when you have no immediate plans for a hot meal to use them in. Got a harvest from the garden with onions that are not going to store? This recipe is perfect from them too. If you had some real time on your hands, and want to make a gift of these, then using little silver skin onions would be perfect too.

Ingredients for quick pickled onions with a twist

1 finely sliced large onion, or equivalent to volume of said onion.
1/2 a cup of raspberry vinegar. Our homemade raspberry vinegar is here.
1/4 cup of garlic fermented honey. Our homemade Honey fermented garlic is here.

Alternative recipe

For those of you without the above ingredients to use immediately, here is an alternative recipe for quick pickled onions.
1 thinly sliced onion
1/2 cup of vinegar of your choice. You can use malt vinegar, just as my Mum and Grandma used to do.
From here the possibilities are endless. You could add some plain honey, and already pickled garlic… our pickled garlic recipe is here. Or just some simple pickling spice. How about adding in some fresh berry juice? The choice is yours.

Method

Put the finely chopped onion in a bowl wide enough that the vinegar are honey will cover the onion, and gently mix. To start with the onions will sit above the liquid, but as they soften they will wilt into the liquid. This recipe is better the longer it is left, as with all recipes, but can be used within a few hours. The onion will just taste a lot stronger. You’ll need to cover your bowl, and stir regularly until the onions wilt down. This pickle then should be kept in the fridge, but will last a few weeks. Well, I say that, as if it ever has here.

What to use them with

I mentioned the cold meats from our Sunday roast, but these quick pickled onions also go exceptionally well with cheese. My youngest Son is a cheese based life form, and he loves these pickled onions with cheese. In fact, the plate I set up for the thumbnail for the video that goes with this blog post was later eaten by him. They also go particularly well with BBQ, omelet’s, curries, and salads. The liquid is also great as a dressing with a good oil, or added in to a marinade.
Here is the video to go with this blog-