Homegrown cucumbers are the starting point of Rosalie Hunt’s pickle recipe.
Submitted photo
Editor’s note: The Daily Reporter occasionally features recipes from Hancock County residents and the stories behind them. Here, Fortville resident Rosalie Hunt, president of Hancock County Extension Homemakers, shares about garlic dill pickles. It’s a longtime family favorite, having been made for 40 years with home-grown cucumbers and dill. Hunt makes over 50 quarts each summer and has won grand champion on the pickles at Riley Festival Home Arts several times. She writes:
Put seven quart jars in the oven at 200 degrees. Wash cukes and set aside. Mix one quart of vinegar, three quarts of water and ¾ cup pickling salt together and put on stove to heat to very hot but not boiling. Put jar lids in small pan of water on stove to get hot as well. When the jars are hot about ¾ of an hour, take one at a time out of oven, put one grape leaf, one clove of garlic, one head of dill plant (or use ½ tsp. dill weed, if you don’t have fresh dill); and ½ tsp of alum, grain type (only available at Amish stores). Add your cukes— slices, chunks, halves, quarters, whole, whatever you want— to the jar. Fill to within ¼ inch of top of jar with hot liquid. Put hot lid on and band and tighten. Set aside to seal. These pickles will seal themselves since everything is hot or room temperature. If a jar does not seal, let cool then refrigerate until ready to eat, within about two weeks.
In the 44 years I have been making this recipe, I have only lost two jars that didn’t seal, which I missed when I took them to the basement which is cool and unheated in winter. It is an old German recipe which is over 100 years old and came from a friend of mine whose mom made them, and he is 90 now.
I did water bath them one time for 10 minutes, but it does take away from the quality of pickle. They are crisp and salty and dill. Claussen pickles recipe is similar to this one and they do not water bath their pickles, but refrigerate them.
I use only Heinz natural vinegar. It is 5 percent acidity. Any less will not keep preserved.
If you like dill pickles, you will like these. If you don’t like dill pickles, you will not like them—too potent. Enjoy. They are ready to eat in two weeks and are best cold.
