The Almost Original Branston Pickle Recipe!

"One of the best-known British commercialised pickles or relishes, is that of Branston Pickle, a spiced vegetable mixture - and a staple for all cheese sarnies (sandwiches) and ploughman's lunches! There are many generic brands on the market now, but this is the closest set of ingredients and the most authentic taste, compared with the Original Branston Pickle recipe! Branston Pickle is wonderful when added to curries and stews, and you MUST try it with toasted cheese or Welsh rarebit - delicious!"
 
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photo by Leggy Peggy photo by Leggy Peggy
photo by Leggy Peggy
photo by Leggy Peggy photo by Leggy Peggy
Ready In:
2hrs 30mins
Ingredients:
16
Yields:
4 1 lb Jars

ingredients

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directions

  • Combine all the ingredients in a large saucepan and bring them to the boil.
  • Then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the swede is cooked, but still remains firm, about 2 hours.
  • Stir well to redistribute all of the vegetables.
  • Bottle and seal in sterile and hot jars.
  • Allow the pickle to age for a few weeks before using, this improves the taste and it will become more "mellow".
  • Serve with cheese, ploughman's lunches, in sandwiches, with cold cuts and meats. This pickle is also wonderful when added to curries and stews.

Questions & Replies

  1. Tip regarding “Small cauliflower” ingredient: in UK cauliflowers are very small compared to Australian and American cauliflowers. From my experience American and Aussie cauliflowers are more than twice as big as British ones. If you live outside the UK I would try a quarter cauliflower and see how you go. And the vegetable listed as swede is sold as Rutabaga in America.
     
  2. Hi.....how long can the pickle be stored in the fridge....in sealed plastic containers?? Thank you
     
  3. Hi how much does this make?... Trying to figure out how many jars we need to have standing by. ??
     
  4. Are the gherkins sweet sort or dill type?
     
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Reviews

  1. This recipe is good in flavor but not texture, too much cauliflower changes the texture and makes it look different to Branston. There are also small bitty bits in this sauce, mustard seeds? Mustard powder is what I will use next time. The Branston I know consists of individual pieces of veg with a SMOOTH rich sweet vinegary sauce.
     
  2. This is great! I added lots (3pts) of water while it cooked for 2 hours. Doubling the quantities I found it took at least an hour or 1.5hrs of chopping prep - I prefer chopped fine as per the original. I also added cornflour at the end to thicken - in hindsight probably a mistake as the final result is not as "juicy" as I'd like. Next time I intend to increase the amount of sugar (+3oz?) and the amount of malt vinegar (+3 cups?) - I generally don't like sauces too sweet but think the original is a mix of stronger sweet and tart. Ta French tart!
     
  3. I doubled the vinegar quantity, doubled the dark brown sugar added a teaspoon extra of all spice and cut the veg small, approx 7mm square pieces. It has worked well and is a fair representation of Branston. Also used a little cornflour to thicken. If you follow the the recipe it will be too dry to be authentic.
     
  4. I am English (living in California) and love, love, love cheese and pickle sandwiches so when I found a recipe for Branston Pickle - I was really happy, the imported stuff being so expensive! I halved the recipe for a test batch and perhaps this was unwise because who is to say what half a small cauli looks like? I used my best judgement (having made countless jams, relishes and jars of chutney) and must have been really off because there just was no liquid at all to bring to the boil. So I doubled the liquid ingredients, added about 4 cups of water and it kind of worked. I used the browning liquid kitchen bouquet to try and get the finished product looking a bit more branston-y and it did, kinda. Does it taste like pickle? Kinda. Would my husband recognize it as pickle if I didn't tell him what it was called? Nope! It tastes nice, but NOT anything on a par with the real Branston. I may try it again, but as malt vinegar is really expensive, and the kitchen bouquet is really expensive I may just give up and buy the real thing.
     
  5. I thought the flavor was great. I used 2tsp of mustard powder instead of the seeds. Also, I used 2 tsp of cayenne pepper which gave it an unauthentic but nice amount of heat. I also used 4 tbsp of corn starch, mixed with a little cold water, and added at the end of the simmer to thicken it properly. It made just about 5 pint jars, and I processed them for 10 minutes in boiling water.
     
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Tweaks

  1. I have made this a couple of times. I did take the advice from the reviews and double up on vinegar and sugar. We compared it with a real Branson and found it tastier with more bite. Will be making more. ??
     
  2. I substituted 1/4 pt of the vinegar with Balsamic vinegar. Was amazed at how good the finished result tasted.
     
    • Review photo by trudib
  3. I thought the flavor was great. I used 2tsp of mustard powder instead of the seeds. Also, I used 2 tsp of cayenne pepper which gave it an unauthentic but nice amount of heat. I also used 4 tbsp of corn starch, mixed with a little cold water, and added at the end of the simmer to thicken it properly. It made just about 5 pint jars, and I processed them for 10 minutes in boiling water.
     

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<p><strong><span>The sunflowers in the field behind my house in SW France:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Sunflowers src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/DSCN8221.jpg alt=Sunflowers width=640 height=480 /><br /><strong><span><br /><br />I am British (English-Scottish), but I was born in South Africa and have lived all over the world, including Hong Kong, Germany, Cyprus, USA &amp; Singapore. I have also been very fortunate to have travelled extensively over the years.........I still have wanderlust! <br /><br />I used to be an English Literature &amp; Art History teacher &amp; lecturer; before that, I trained and worked as a Graphic Designer for many years. I now live in France with my husband &amp; my daughter who has just started university in September 2006. We also have one very chatty Burmese cat Willow, who allows us to live with her here! (I used to have three cats, I recently lost Monty, a beautiful seal point Siamese and before that, Rama, who was a debonair blue point Siamese cat - I would love to have another Siamese cat or cats in the future!)</span></strong></p> <p><em><strong><span>This is my Burmese Cat, Willow, sunning herself on the log pile in the kitchen garden:</span></strong></em></p> <p><strong><img title=My src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/ABaconButtyandSundryFoodPhotos34.jpg alt=My width=640 height=480 /></strong></p> <p><strong><span>Here is my lovely Monty, a seal point Siamese, and Willow, sitting&nbsp;in the kitchen garden last year, and a few months before Monty died; he was 18yrs old:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Monty src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/AbsolutelySinfulStickyToffeePudding.jpg alt=Monty width=640 height=480 />My</p> <p><strong><span>This is my wonderful old boy, Rama, a blue-point Siamese, who died when he was 20yrs old - excuse the old and much sellotaped photo:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Rama src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/Rama1stOctober2004164.jpg alt=Rama width=517 height=639 /></p> <p><strong><span>My favourite pastimes are: reading, writing, painting &amp; drawing, photography, gardening, anything creative, walking, travelling, dining out and of course COOKING! 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