Hot Garlic Dill Pickles Recipe

Here's an easy recipe for home-made pickles that you can serve with any Southern dish. This recipe assumes you are familiar with the basics of canning foods.

Select cucumbers that are about 3-5 inches long, with no blemishes. You can use any type cucumber, not just pickling cukes. You may slice the cucumbers or use them whole. I like the whole ones.

Directions
1. Prepare jars and lids in boiling water.
2. In a LARGE pot, combine two quarts water, 1 1/2 cups salt, two cups white vinegar. Bring to a boil until all the salt is thoroughly dissolved.
3. In each jar place: one large sprig of dill weed, 1 medium jalapenos pepper (sliced length-way), 3 cloves garlic, 1/2 tsp black peppercorn and 2 grape leaves.
4. Fill jar with sliced cucumbers (or whole if you prefer) and pour hot vinegar mix in jar to within 1 inch of top.
5. Seal jars and process in hot water bath about 20 minutes.

You might have a problem finding grape leaves since you can not just go to the store and buy them. If so, I really don't have an answer where you might get them, other than perhaps a neighbor that grows grapes. I grow all the ingredients for this recipe, except the vinegar and salt, in my garden. The grape leaves are critical to making pickles with a good crunch. Unfortunately, I don't know of a substitute other than alum which I refuse to use. If you can not obtain grape leaves, I would use nothing before I would put alum in my pickles. You will still get a good crunchy pickle if you do not over process them.

The Story of How I got This Recipe
Years ago in Sacramento, California, I ran across an old man selling pickles at a swap meet. He made the pickles in his own kitchen in large plastic barrels and sold them on week-ends. I went to this swap meet every Saturday all during the summer and noticed the lines of people gathered in front of his booth, but I always walked by.

Then, one Saturday, I stopped. He had many types of home made pickles, with bite-sized samples of the various pickles laid out for tasting. They were all good but when I tried the Hot, Garlic, Dill Pickle... I was hooked. So, for what would have been the equivalent of about six dollars in today's money, I bought a quart of pickles served up in a cardboard Chinese take-out carton. They were the absolute, best pickles I had ever tasted.

I made pickles myself many times over the years, but they were nothing special. In fact, pickles from the store were better. I thought, if only I knew how the old man made them, I could make my own. But I was sure he would not give out his recipe since he made his living selling them. So, I never asked.

Instead, I went through every recipe book in the library looking for pickles. I tried dozens of recipes, but never came close to the old man's formula.

Several years passed as I continued buying pickles from the old guy until one Saturday, he was not there. Nor was he there the next Saturday. So, after several weeks, I went to the Swap Meet Office and asked what happened to the pickle man. As I feared, he had died.

So, I accepted the fact that I would never taste those fabulous hot, garlic, dills again. Until, one morning, as I was reading the Sunday paper, I spotted a small article on "The Pickle Man Passes Away". The old man's daughter provided her father's life story and to keep his memory alive, she included his best pickle recipes. She felt that he would want his pickles to continue being enjoyed.

When I read the recipe for the hot, garlic dill pickles, I was not sure it was the real thing. It was too simple. There had to be some exotic, secret ingredient. But there it was... with no secret ingredient.

Of course, I made the pickles that same day and they were perfect. They were the old man's pickles!