Pickles- from a friend:)

" What's special about this recipe (for me of course) and maybe different from other recipes is the fact there's no water involved in the process (except when washing the peppers :) ).

So I only use vinegar, salt and lots of sugar, that is because i am a sucker for sweet-sour taste, intense of course!

For 5 Kilos of peppers:

- 1 litter of vinegar (it's a must to be wine vinegar!), 

- around half a kilo of salt (in theory better without iodine, but i never bother too much about this)

- around 1 kg of sugar - maybe a little less (i always taste it...i know i'm a nut, but it's very important for me to be sweet enough).

- few leaves of laurel and  grain pepper .

You put all these together and bring them to boiling point (use a big pot, because you will need to "soak" the peppers in gradually). During that, you wash the peppers and take out the seeds - i always cut them in half, but you can cut them in smaller sizes if you wish to make the stowing in the jar more easy.

When the brine is boiling you take the peppers and put them inside (small quantities, so they are covered by the liquid) and let them in 20 seconds or so until they become a little soft (not too much, otherwise in time, with the process of preserving, they will become too soft). Do that until you finished all the peppers.

Putting them in jars comes next. When you do that try to put them as tight as possible, so that very little room is left for the brine. Make sure the jars are clean and completely dry.

You can ad carrots (slices) or cauliflower directly in the jar (they don't need soaking in the boiling brine as the peppers do). And 1-2 leaves of laurel inside each jar and aspirin for preserving (never use preservative).

After you finished stacking them, pour the boiling brine over and make sure you cover the peppers. Then put the caps and tighten them as hard as you can.

The last part is "sterilizing" them in the hot oven - you heat the oven and put the jars in for 2-3 minutes. Then take them out and cover them all with a cloth to keep them warm like that for a while."

And that's it :P

 

 Thank you Sofia:)