Home-canned, mildly-tart pickled green tomatoes are a real delicacy and very hard to come by, unless you make them or live near a good deli.
The recipe says these are “kosher-style”, but doesn’t say what it is that makes them kosher style. Perhaps it is the weaker pickling liquid.
This recipe comes from So Easy to Preserve.
The recipe
Jar size choices: ½ litre (1 US pint / 500 ml/ 16 oz) OR 1 litre (US quart / 32 oz)
Processing method: Either water-bath or steam canning
Yield: 12 x ½ litre (US pint) jars
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: Either size jar 15 minutes
Pickled Green Tomatoes
Ingredients
- 2 kg green tomatoes (small firm green tomatoes. Approx 2 kg / 5 lbs)
- 6 stalks celery (cut into lengths of 5 cm / 2-inch)
- 6 green bell peppers (washed, cored, seeded and cut into quarters or strips)
- cloves garlic
- heads dill (fresh. Or dill seed)
- Pickle Crisp (optional)
- pickling salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
- 2 litres water (2 US quarts / 64 oz)
- 1 litre white vinegar (5% or higher. 1 US quart / 32 oz)
Instructions
- Wash tomatoes. Remove any leaves and stems.
- Wash celery stalks, cut into pieces 5 cm (2 inches) long.
- Wash green pepper, seed, cut each into 8 strips.
- Wash jars.
- In each half-litre (pint jar) put the following seasonings: 2 to 3 pieces of celery, a few green pepper pieces, 1 tablespoon salt, ⅛th teaspoon Pickle Crisp® (optional), 1 clove of garlic and 1 head of dill (or 1 teaspoon dill seed). Double all those seasonings if using litre (US quart) jars.
- Pack in tomatoes, leaving 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Put vinegar and water into a large pot, and bring it to a boil.
- Fill jars with the hot vinegar mixture, leaving 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Debubble, adjust headspace.
- If you are short of pickling liquid, just quickly zap some more in microwave in the same ratio as above: two-thirds water to one-third vinegar.
- Wipe jar rims.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process either size jar for 15 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude (see table below.)
- Let stand 4 to 6 weeks before opening and sampling.
Nutrition
Processing guideline times below differ slightly from the usual altitude changes. The times apply equally to water-bath canners or steam canners.
Required processing time in minutes per altitude | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Jar Size | 0 - 300 m / 0 - 1,000 ft | 301 - 900 m / 1,001 - 3,000 ft | 901 - 1,800 m / 3,001 - 6,000 ft | Above 1,800 m / 6,000 |
½ litre (US pint) | 15 min | 20 min | 20 min | 25 min |
1 litre (US quart) | 15 min | 20 min | 20 min | 25 min |
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
For salt substitute, a non-bitter, non-clouding one such as Herbamare Sodium-Free was used.
For stevia, Better Stevia liquid stevia was the stevia used.
More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
Recipe notes
- Note that the sizes and shapes of the tomatoes used will affect how many go into a jar, and therefore how much pickling liquid is needed.
- How many jars you get, especially in the ½ litre (US pint) size will depend how adept you are at fitting the tomatoes into the jars, and keeping them fitted in after debubbling.
- This recipe uses an unusual vinegar ratio: ⅔ water to ⅓ vinegar. They are presumably counting on the very high acidity of the green tomatoes.
- Green tomatoes should be about 2 to 5 cm (1 to 2 inches) wide or less.
- Yes, leave tomatoes whole. You do not need to peel, slice or quarter them.
- The tomatoes will be an olive green after processing.
Recipe source
Kosher Style Dill Green Tomato Pickles. In: Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 141.
Modifications made:
- Changed small pearl onions to a few strips of onion;
- Added option for smaller ½ litre (US pint) jars (processing time stays the same);
- Lowered the salt a bit.
Safety Check
These Pickled Green Tomatoes, kosher-style, have a pH of 3.75. Well below the upper safety cut-off of 4.6 pH.
Nutrition information
Regular version
Per ¼ of a 1 litre (US quart) jar:
- 15 calories, 585 mg sodium
Salt-free version
Per ¼ of a 1 litre (US quart) jar:
- 15 calories, 4 mg sodium
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
* Herbamare ® is a registered trademark of the A. Vogel Corporation.
Dustin
Any chance I can just pickle tomatoes only without any of the additional vegetables or flavor seasoning? Like Tomatoes, salt, water, vinegar?