Pickled Telegraph Cucumber Slices.

Pickled Telegraph Cucumber Slices.
Similar to ghurkins in texture.

Dissolve 1/2 cup of sea salt in
4 cups of water.

Wash the cucumbers well, remove the ends and slice 1 cm thick.
Line a non-metallic bowl with grape leaves, put sliced telegraph cucumber on top, cover those with more grape leaves. pour brine over and Leave for 24 hours in a cool place.

Drain.
boil 4 cups of white vinegar,
1 cup of sugar,

Put 1/4 teaspoon of each spice into each jar [ 450 gram ] with a re-sealable lid;
dill seed
mustard seed
peppercorns

Add sliced cucumbers to the boiling vinegar mixture, [ 1 jar at a time ] and bottle as soon as they come up to boil, cover with the vinegar, leave 1 cm head space put lids on, tip upside down to assist sealing.

To stop your jars from cracking if they are cold, stand them in hot water in a small bowl while you fill.

My friend is into a healthy lifestyle, whereby she does all her own bottling. I get some of them. This time round I got her pickled cucumbers. Love, love, love them. I am trying to, sparingly, make them last - lol.

We opened a jar to try the, Pickled Telegraph Cucumber Slices tonight. Well pleased for 7 days in the bottle. Nice and crisp. May well be cheaper to pickle the telegraph cucumbers than bothering about gherkins. We spent a fortune on buying gherkins last year.

Something I should have mentioned earlier is that the use of grape leaves to line the bowl, and cover the slices, does make a huge difference. I bottled some today that were not brined using the grape leaves and I could tell the crispness was not the same even at that stage of the process.

I am looking forward to using this method this year.