Pickled Cucumbers

Ingredients

• 4 cucumbers
• Salt
• Water
• Cabbage leaves
• Vine leaves
• Vinegar
• Cloves
• Mace
• Mustard seed
• Sugar

Directions

1. Make a brine of salt and water strong enough to bear an egg. 
2. Pour it over the cucumbers and cover them with cabbage leaves. 
3. Let them stand for a week, until they are quite yellow.
4. Pour off the water.
5. Take a porcelain kettle, cover the bottom with fresh leaves. 
6. Put in the cucumbers with a piece of alum; cover them closely with vine leaves and then with a dish or cloth, to keep in the steam.
7. Fill up kettle with clear water and hang it over the fire, but not in a blaze. 
8. The fire under the kettle must be moderate.
9. Keep them over the fire in a slow heat for several hours.
10. If they are not then a pretty green, repeat the process.
11. When they are well greened, take them out of the kettle, drain them on a sieve and put them into a clean stone jar.
12. Then spice the vinegar with cloves, mace, mustard seed and sugar.
13. Boil well for 5 or 6 minutes, when they will be fit for use.

Source — Creole Cookery Book
Prepared by Cole Squyres
Louisiana Anthology
June 5, 2020