Learning to pickle with Sarsons and Kilner Jars

I love condiments and pickles accompanying my meals and they are even nicer when they are home made. Recently Sarsons UK's number one vinegar brand invited me to a pickling workshop in collaboration with Kilner Jars. I jumped at the chance as nothing beats having home made pickles and also with an abundance of fresh produce available what better way than to preserve it to use in the winter. With autumn on our door step  already, it won't be long before its Christmas and this year, I plan to make jars of pickles as edible gifts. That's half my Christmas presents sorted!!! If you want to have ago a pickling you can check out the recipes at the Sarsons recipe page.
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Sarsons new speciality pickling vinegars are perfect as they do not require any extra addition of sugars or any other seasoning and they already have everything that's required in them.

To make your own pickles all that remains is to chop the vegetables, load them into jars and pour over the speciality blend vinegar's and hey presto you have home made pickles at a click of a fingers.I think the hardest part is waiting for the pickles to be ready for eating!!

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At  the Sarsons pickling event we were able to taste 4 different types of pickles; pickled cucumbers, pickled garlic, pickled peppers and Vietnamese carrot pickle. My favourite amongst them all was the cucumber pickle, After the sampling we were able to make our own jars of pickles to take home.

Denise Tollyfield our chef  tutor for the night explained that for pickling its imperative to use the freshest ingredients to get the best results. For Optimum results don't be tempted to use old produce save that for chutneys instead!!! We had the freshest ingredients and lovely produce to create our pickles with.

We also learnt that it is equally important to wash and sterilise the jars and the rubber rings either by boiling them in a water bath or washing them in the dishwasher to. This ensures that the pickles stay fresh for longer.The Kilner jars are by far the best for this purpose and they come in various different sizes too.

We  had 4 stations each creating one of the above pickles. I chose to make the cucumber pickle with my friend Heidi whilst another friend Manjiri made the pepper pickle. I did not dare try the garlic pickle as those who were brave enough to taste it said it was rather pungent and would definitely ward off any vampires!!!

Our pickling session was really enjoyable and we all achieved some great results and I think each group was really successful in recreating the pickles we had sampled earlier.

I am really excited to see that my cucumber pickle not only looked great, it tasted delicious especially as I added some red chillies to it to give it a bit of a spicy Kick!!!!

Its always enjoyable to learn new culinary skills and its even more fun when you do it with your best buddies!!! Here is Heidi, Manjiri and my self "The Three Musketeers" proudly showing off our creations!!!

I was invited by Sarsons to the pickling workshop, all photos and opinions shared in this post are my own.