Fresh Pickles (and science)

It’s pickle season.  I guess, really it’s cucumber season, but the two go hand in hand.  The farmer’s market had super cheap pickling cucumbers, so I brought a bunch home to make fresh pickles.  Fresh pickles are easier to make than canned variety. The canned kind last longer, but who wants to spend time boiling glass jars?  Not this girl.

There’s no limit to what you can do with pickles- sweet, garlicky, dilly, spicy.  Whatever you throw into the pickling liquid will seep into the pickles, thanks to SCIENCE.

Diffusion is the process of substances moving through a permeable membrane from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration, until the relative proportions are even on the two sides.  In the case of pickles, the membrane we’re interested in is the cucumber cell.  Cucumbers are made of plant cells, and plant cells are mostly water.  The water within the cells makes veggies crunchy, but it isn’t especially tasty.  Luckily, we can use science-diffusion- to trick nature and put extra tastiness into the pickles.

The first step in pickling is to get the excess water out of the plant cells.  The quickest way to do this is by sprinkling the veggies with salt.  The salt hits the moist surface of the cucumber slices and forms a salt water mixture.  Therefore, the water on the outside of the cucumber is much saltier than the water inside the slice.  In other words, there is a high concentration of pure water inside the slice than outside.  Diffusion takes place: the water inside the cells of the cucumber leeches out to the outside of the cells.  If you leave the slices for a few minutes you’ll see this in action: the slices should be dripping wet.  This is why you should always set your salted slices in a colander in the sink.  After about 15 minutes the cucumbers will have lost a fair amount of water.  The longer they sit the more water will diffuse out because the concentration of water inside the cuke is still high compared to the amount outside the cell.

Once the cucumbers are dehydrated, we can reverse the process.  Make a delicious, flavorful marinade and set the slices in it.  The concentration of tastiness is higher outside the cucumber, and diffusion will cause the tastiness to flow into the cucumber cells.

When you understand the science, you can use your imagination to make the pickling liquid tasty.  White vinegar is a pretty standard base, but you can use rice vinegar for a more Asian flavor.  I didn’t have any rice vinegar, so I used a combination of white vinegar and apple cider vinegar.  It’s pretty much impossible to mess this up.  No matter what you put in will be tasty, so get creative.

Sweet and spicy pickles:

3 cucumbers, sliced into thin rounds
Salt
2 c. apple cider vinegar
1 c. white wine vinegar
3 Tbs. sesame oil
2 Tbs. soy sauce
1/4 c. brown sugar
Asian chili-garlic sauce, to taste

Set sliced cucumbers in a colander in the sink.  Sprinkle generously with salt to dehydrate.  Let slices sit for at least 15 minutes.  Do not rinse.

Prepare pickling liquid in a shallow baking dish.  Add cucumbers to liquid. Cover and refrigerate. Fresh pickles will last a few days to a week in the refrigerator.  They will get tastier with time (diffusion!).