Farm Fresh Pickled Asparagus with The Outdoors Chef {COOK}

[Music] asparagus here in Ontario can grow as much as 12 inches in a single day now I've been having fresh asparagus for a couple weeks now and it's time to take what I've got leftover and pickle it pickling it allows me to enjoy it all year round now if you're gonna get into growing asparagus it's not something you can start this year and harvest it in the same year you plant the roots you can see that you line them out with about 36 inches in between rows and then you cover it with a really good mulch to keep the weeds down asparagus are incredibly nutritious they're full of antioxidants and they taste great when we can it we can enjoy year-round and harvesting it is as simple as holding the base and either snapping it off or just simply taking a knife a serrated knife and nicking the bottom it's that easy let's get these to the kitchen this pickled recipe has got some fire and some heat it's perfect for using in mixed drinks or just simply to put on the side of a charcuterie board or to use with fresh vegetables or as a side for a main course there's so many applications at my house I have to lock these down and hide them otherwise they'll all be gone within weeks so the first step that we have to do is we have to get the pickling liquid ready and make sure to get the canning liquid ready the canning liquid is just simply water brought up to a boil that's a rolling boil and make sure there's enough water in the pan to cover the jars by one inch minimum you'll notice that I've selected a widemouth jar now when it comes to asparagus you'll be glad you did because as you stuff the asparagus in you won't have to fight with the collar and the neck of the other jars I'll have a second pan for the lids alone and there I'll just keep them just below boil so they're good and hot softens the seal and they'll be ready to go lastly I want to bring all the flavors together for the pickling liquid essentially poaching things like the red pepper and the red onion and the jalapeno and getting all the spice flavors into it and then we'll finish with the jars starting to sterilize it's important to remember that ten minutes minimum is necessary to get them ready for any product so get yourself a timer and ten minutes minimum with that nice bubbling rolling boil doesn't have to be a rapid boil but you have to see the bubbles have to make sure that they get good and sterile the next step is to trim the asparagus and there's a couple things to keep in mind the asparagus are going to both shrink in their diameter and their length so you really want to jam-pack the asparagus in so that as they shrink when it cooks that your jar isn't half empty the other thing is they will shrink in length just lately so take and put the asparagus in now you always want to leave the collar of the jar empty so all I'm gonna do is just simply mark with my thumb approximately the height of that collar and then I'll begin to trim it I'll trim one now that one becomes my benchmark so all the other asparagus that I trim will be trimmed to that length so take that use your knife and jog the ends this makes it really simple jog the ends and then use that as your benchmark and you'll see when you start to pack them in that they're all the right size so they're just slightly over the top of the collar but that's okay because I know they're gonna shrink in length I'm gonna get started get all these prep it's actually incredible how much goes into every jar you'll see that in a dozen jars you can probably get a dozen pounds of asparagus now when it comes to pickling you can make your own or you can buy a premade mix but what you're really doing is creating a very fragrant flavor base so in the bucket right now I've got white vinegar so pickling vinner just standard white vinegar and then you can see here I've got mustard seed so all this goes in I've got dill seed and if you like the heat and this is where you can really customize it you can either add the chili flakes or not so this is the first step I'm gonna top that up with some water so it's a nice combination of vinegar and water and lots of flavor bases I have a few more to put in this smells incredible already now I'm gonna go in with whole coriander seed and then 1/3 of a cup of sugar and then one of my favorite ingredients and something you really want to make sure to do is get a really good salt so salt is very fragrant I'm gonna do 1/3 a cup of pink Himalayan salt and you can see I'm using my herb and citrus salt now that we've got a great spice mixture base and both the water and the vinegar it's time to do a little bit of vegetable so we're gonna use red pepper red onion and if you choose the jalapeno so the jalapeno has a lot of heat but when you poach it or when we put it in the pickling liquid it will mellow a little bit all I want to do is I just want to add some rings so I'll simply start by slicing rings out of the jalapeno what we want with the red pepper is a fine dice so we'll remove all the sides and then it's going to be removing that little bit of white on the inside all I really want is just that beautiful sweet red pepper so then a fine slice will turn this into a julienne then turn sideways I'll make a fine dice this will fit in the bottle and make sure there's nice flavor in each one and nice little red floating squares in each one as well makes it really beautiful the last ingredient to go in is the red onion and we're gonna do a fine dice let me show you how to do that take the tip off and then take off the root leaving it just enough intact so you can handle it slice it in half and then you can see this is the root and the tip and you can see those different layers we're gonna take off these onions are pretty fresh simply slice through the same size as the pepper so that you get nice uniform pieces you can see how easy that it is the motion I'm using is to press down and draw back at the same time so it's slicing then with your hands up so you don't cut yourself hold that down and with a sawing motion slice through and then do the same again lastly there's that fine dice we're looking for that'll find its way into every jar with the jars all sterilizes time to remove them you'll notice that I've got a special tool it's inexpensive it allows me to control the jar comfortably empty it and the key is any tools you use make sure to sterilize them before use you can see that I've got the jars on a cooling rack which will really come in handy when you're all finished to get the jars cooled when you let them set for 24 hours but here's the time where I want to build a few more flavors so I'm putting a full clove of garlic now this is where you can really customize a recipe for yourself sliced in half and each jar and then this is one of my secret ingredients star anis I'm going to put one of those in every jar they're beautiful and they are fragrant and then the last thing to do is to put some fresh dill in the reason that I do all this now is that it's difficult to get it in later when it's filled with asparagus so I'll put the whole stem in making sure that it falls down inside the important thing is to not to come into contact with any of the outside surface and just to drop it into place and then I'm gonna start filling with asparagus now it's very important to put a steaming hot liquid inside the jars I'm using a sterilized funnel and just simply start to ladle all of that beautiful pickling liquid down inside what I do to make sure I get a good even distribution of all the goodies inside the pickling liquid just give it a stir just before I put it in and then start ladling it in it's time for the jars to go in now remember you have to remove a bunch of the hot water in order to put these in now I've used sterilized tongs and you'll see that I've put all the lids on it's really important at this point not to come into contact with that lid and if you do use sterilized tools you want to put the ring on and just snug it down it's not something you want to do tight so you should literally just gently tighten it should just be snug and these can begin to go back in I'll use the same tool that I use to take them out and this way I'll have plenty of control and the weight won't bother me and all their cantilevers so they give you lots of power and it goes and make sure to cover it with an inch or more of water set your timer minimum of 10 minutes and they'll be done now that we've jarred asparagus I guarantee you'll be going through your market and through your own garden and thinking what can you can next now the one principle that I want to talk to you about what's happening inside this jar right now all the liquid and that tiny bit of air in the neck is heated up so it is expanded now as it cools that liquid and that air will contract creating a vacuum and right now this lid is convex so it's slightly bent upwards and as the air and the water and the liquid contract it'll get concave which means it'll be bowing like this because that lid to snap down that's what you're looking for anytime that you're canning you want that little and you want it to pucker down you want to go concave and you don't want that lid to pop if when you're finished by the way leaving it for 24 hours untouched don't turn it upside down don't get into it to eat it make sure that that is concave when it is and that lid doesn't snap you'll know that you've got a successful canning and after you do this a couple times it'll be just like breathing it's so simple to do this farm fresh asparagus is perfect pickled [Music] [Music]

Channel: Realtime Outdoors Network

Views: 8,839

Rating: 4.9371729 out of 5

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Id: CTUnrSSFrOs

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 03 2019