We love a really good Christmas dinner, but secretly (or not so secretly) we love Boxing Day food even more. Cold roast potatoes straight from the fridge – with a squeeze of mayonnaise – for breakfast, smoked salmon, scrambled egg, and bagels for brunch, Andrew’s famous turkey sandwich for lunch, and a ‘grazing meal’ in the evening with cold leftover turkey and stuffing, a gorgeous honey-glazed ham, jacket potatoes and about five different salads. It needs something to cut through the richness, and that’s where the V&S Perfect Pickle comes in.
Ingredients
- 3 red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
- 150ml boiling water
- 150ml vinegar (either red or white wine is fine)
- 1 tsp sugar (white or brown)
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 large bay leaves
- Selection of whole spices (we like a mix of coriander seeds, whole cloves, juniper berries, fennel seeds)
Method
- Put the water, vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices into a saucepan, and heat very gently until the sugar and salt have dissolved. It might need a bit of a mix by way of encouragement.
- Sterilise a 500ml sized preserving jar. [The best way is simply to pour a kettle of boiling water in it, and let the water come down the sides – not forgetting the inside of the lid too – and then let it air dry for a while.]
- Put the sliced onions and bay leaves in the cooled jar, and fill to the top with the warm pickling liquid. You might not quite need all of the liquid, so if not, fish out any remaining spices and add them to the jar.
- Seal the jar, and leave for a few days to let the magic happen.