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Pickled Beets
4 cold cooked or canned beets 3 cloves 3/4 cup vinegar 2 tablespoons sugar Cook beets till tender, or use canned beets. Drain, slice and pour heated vinegar with sugar and cloves over them. Let stand till cold, several hours if possible.
A refrigerator pickle rather than a preserve: the beets are dressed in hot sweetened vinegar and left to cool, which takes an hour or two at minimum and is better overnight.
- This is not canningNothing here is processed or sealed, so treat it as a fresh salad. Keep it covered in the refrigerator and eat within a week.
- Cooking the beetsWhole unpeeled beets of medium size take 30 to 45 minutes at a simmer; the skins slip off under cold running water. Canned beets, as the recipe allows, need only draining.
- Vinegar strengthThe recipe does not specify a strength; ordinary 5 percent cider or white vinegar suits it. Anything sharper should be cut with water or the beets will be harsh.
- Heat the vinegar, do not boil it longWarm the vinegar with the sugar and cloves only until the sugar dissolves and the cloves give up their scent, a minute or two. Prolonged boiling drives off the vinegar and concentrates the sugar.
- ClovesThree whole cloves is a modest amount; clove overwhelms beet quickly. Fish them out before serving if the pickle will sit more than a day.
- SugarTwo tablespoons to three-quarters of a cup of vinegar gives a distinctly sour pickle by current tastes. Increase to three or four tablespoons for a sweeter balance.
- YieldFour medium beets make roughly two cups sliced, enough for four as a side or relish. The liquid should just cover them in a narrow jar or bowl.
Pickled beets belong to the large family of cold vinegar relishes that anchored American menus before refrigeration was universal: cheap, keepable, and a spot of color on a plate of otherwise pale food. This version offers canned beets as an equal alternative to boiling your own, a sign that commercially canned vegetables were accepted as a legitimate shortcut in the household kitchen. The result is less a preserve than a quick garnish, made in the time it takes to heat the vinegar and cool it again.