Short Snort - Pickling Spice

This pic isn't really related to what we're doing today.
I just needed something food oriented for the top of the page.

Ladies, gentlemen, and everyone who doesn't fit so neatly into those two ticky-boxes, we are going to start in on one of the worst written recipes I have ever seen.

I found it on Facebook.

But we're not doing it today. We're not even looking at it yet.

Nope. That's the next post. Today we're prepping a major ingredient. Yep, it's a two parter, and man-oh-Manischewitz have I been looking forward to this.

But, to quote my father, first you get the hay, then you get the horses.

We're going to start with a homemade pickling spice mix.

Let's begin with our hardware.

Teaspoon and Tablespoon measuring spoons

Airtight container,.into which we will be putting:

• Two tablespoons of whole mustard seed
• One tablespoon of whole allspice berries
• Two teaspoons of whole coriander seeds
• One teaspoon of ground ginger
• One teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes
• One bay leaf. (stick a pin in this, we're going to come back around in a minute)
• One cinnamon stick, two inches long.

Put all of those in your top container. Store in a cool, dark place for upwards of six months.

Let's talk about that bay leaf. Most pickling recipes that include bay leaves instruct crumbling the leaf. Now, you can if you like, I'm not the boss of you. But I don't like that practice.

See, a bay leaf piece is a hard, sharp bit of vegetation, and if ingested can cause lacerations. Again, I won't tell you what to do, but I don't care to go to the hospital because a bit of pickling blend slashed my trachea. Which is unlikely, but not a risk I'm willing to take. Or let my children take.

When all is said and done.

So, my advice is to leave the leaf whole. If you want, you can pull it out and discard, but you do need that flavor. Rationale will become quite clear when we get to picklin'.

So, you ready to decipher the indecipherable? To test your food knowledge and gustatorial intuition? To have a laugh at someone who probably means well but doesn't know how to write a recipe?

I mean, you're reading this blog, so you're already halfway there, right?

Don't put your knife in the dishwasher.