Sunday Afternoon Tea Quick Pickled Cucumber and Onion

French Tart's Note:

This should be called Mum's quick pickled cucumber and onion, as this is what she made EVERY Sunday afternoon for tea-time! We always had this alongside fresh bread and butter, boiled eggs, cold cuts of meat, fruit cake, scones, sometimes a tin of red salmon and always a pot of tea! Wonderful memories, and an easy and tasty pickle for tea-time food. This is also wonderful with picnic food, smoked salmon or an assorted cheese board.

• Total Time: 2 hrs 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 2 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 1 whole cucumber
• 1 small onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 60 ml malt vinegar
• 75 g sugar
• mint (to garnish) or parsley (to garnish)

Directions:

1. Use a fork to run through the surface of the cucumber, vertically downwards, to obtain a fluted pattern when sliced.
2. Cut cucumber into thin slices and put into a large bowl, sprinkle with salt and mix well. Leave the cucumber for 10 minutes to absorb the salt then rinse with cold water. Drain off excess liquid in a colander. Return cucumber to the large bowl and add the sliced onions.
3. Combine sugar and vinegar together. Add to cucumber and onion slices and mix well.
4. Decant into a plastic container, and refrigerate overnight or for a few hours before serving.
5. Garnish with mint or parsley.
6. Keeps in the fridge for a week.

Reviews

[Halcyon Eve]

Loved these! The malt vinegar added a different flavor than the vinegars I'm used to using. They were just a bit too sweet for my taste (although that could be due to a conversion error--I used 1/3 cup). They had a lovely, fresh flavor even after only 3 hours in the fridge. Thanks so much for sharing, FT! Made for the French Tart Cookathon in the Everyday is a Holiday tag game.

[pedspeech]

I didn't know that it was possible to make pickles that tasted great so soon after making! I used cider vinegar and omitted the onions. We found these to be quite tasty and I'm sure I will keep these in the fridge once our cucumbers start coming in!

[lacriath]

Very refreshing and easy to make.