Swallowtail Preserves Ltd

Piccalilli is a great condiment for cold meat and cheese. It’s popular with vegetable gardeners, who make it use up their glut of produce in late summer. If you don’t garden then it’s perfectly acceptable and will work just as well with ‘wonky’ veg that are available in supermarkets. You will need 3kg of prepared vegetables – diced cucumber and courgette or marrow, green beans, small onions, cauliflower florets, red and green bell peppers, sliced carrots. I prefer dry salting the vegetables and I use 3% salt. So for 3kg of vegetables you will need 90g of fine cooking salt. In a non-metallic bowl, mix well and then refrigerate for 24 hours. After this time rinse well with 2 changes of cold tap water and drain. Make up your spiced vinegar with 5 litres of distilled malt vinegar, 15g turmeric, 20g dry mustard powder, 1.5tsp ground ginger and 275g white sugar. Make up a slurry of 80g cornflour with a little more vinegar. Add the vegetables to the spiced vinegar and bring to the boil. Cook for 3 minutes, then blend in the cornflour. Cook for 1 more minute then remove from the heat. Have your hot jars and lids ready. Pack the Piccalilli in to the jars, top up with the spiced vinegar and seal immediately.