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Onions, Spanish, Pickled
Take some moderate-sized and perfectly sound Spanish onions, cut them into slices, and put them for twenty-four hours in a brine sufficiently strong to float an egg. Drain them well, lay them in a wide-mouthed earthen jar, and put a sliced capsicum, four cloves, and an ounce of whole pepper with every three onions. Nearly fill the jar with vinegar, place the lid on it, and set it in a large pan of cold water. Place this upon the fire, and simmer gently until the onions are soft. Add a little more vinegar, if required; cover the jar closely, and store the pickle in a cool, dry place. Time, an hour and a half to simmer. Probable cost of onions, 1 1/2d. each.
A hot-pack vinegar pickle of the older English kind, where the onions are cooked soft rather than kept crisp. Two things carry it: a brine strong enough to draw the water out of the slices, and a gentle water-bath simmer that never lets the vinegar boil.
- Brine strong enough to float an eggThat test corresponds to roughly a 10 per cent salt solution — on the order of 1 lb of plain salt to a gallon of water, depending on the grain of the salt. Use non-iodised salt without anti-caking agents, and check with a raw egg in the shell: it should rise and hover rather than sit on the bottom.
- Spanish onionsThe same large, mild, straw-skinned onion sold under that name today. The book does not say what it counts as "moderate-sized"; anything soft, bruised or sprouting should be discarded, since a bad slice will spoil the jar.
- CapsicumIn Victorian usage this is a fresh or dried hot red pepper pod, not a sweet bell pepper. A small dried chilli per three onions is a reasonable modern reading; split it if you want more heat.
- Cut the pepper right backAn ounce of whole peppercorns per three onions is close to four tablespoons — brutal by modern taste. Two teaspoons of black peppercorns per three onions gives the same aromatic effect without the pickle turning acrid.
- VinegarUse a 5 per cent acidity malt, cider or white wine vinegar straight from the bottle and do not dilute it; the acid is what keeps the pickle. Vinegar attacks aluminium, cast iron and unlined copper, so work in glass, stoneware or stainless steel throughout.
- The water bath is the pointStanding the jar in a pan of cold water and bringing it up slowly keeps the vinegar below a boil. Boiling vinegar drives off acetic acid and gives a harsh, flat pickle, and direct heat will crack an earthenware jar.
- Simmering timeAn hour and a half produces genuinely soft, translucent onions — the texture this recipe is after. If you prefer some bite, 20 to 30 minutes is enough; there is no preservation reason for the longer time.
- Storage"A cool, dry place" assumed a stone larder. Pack into hot, clean jars, top up with vinegar so the onions stay fully submerged, and keep it in the refrigerator — this is not a sealed, processed preserve, and it will hold for a month or two rather than a year.
- YieldThree Spanish onions sliced fill roughly a 1-quart jar; add vinegar to nearly fill it, as the recipe directs. Leave it a week before opening; the spices need time to move into the onions.
Sliced-onion pickles like this sit at the mild end of a long British tradition that ran from tiny silverskins in malt vinegar to whole shallots kept for the cold-meat table. Spanish onions were prized for sweetness and size, which is why they are specified here rather than the small pickling onions: the aim is a soft, sweet relish for cheese, cold beef or curry, not a crunchy bar pickle. The water-bath instruction is often said to be typical of Cassell's, a book written for households where a pickle jar was earthenware and the range gave uneven, fierce heat; setting the jar in a pan of water was the period's way of getting a controlled, low temperature. The costing in pence ala habit of Victorian household manuals ala is a reminder that these books were as much budgeting tools as cookbooks.