We did have some cucumbers growing in our garden, but not enough to make conserves of them. We wanted to make some cucumber conserves, and so as our local grower Suttinen had an offer of 1 kilo of cucumbers for 1 euro we went and got about 5 kilos to make sliced pickles out of them. But that is another story. This is about that OTHER time we went and got a few kilos of the same cucumbers to make whole pickles and cucumber relish! I used about 2 kilos of cucumbers for the whole pickles (I got 4 big glass jars) and a bit less for the relish - I got four smaller jars of that.
Read on to learn how I made the Finnish-style mustard cucumber relish! Note that this happpened back in early September - the cucumber season had definitely passed in Finland by now!
This is the finished cucumber cube batch.
What I then did was follow the recipe from the vinegar makers site www.rajamaen.fi for mustard cucumber relish, but as I didn't have any red peppers I simply left them out.
| 2 kg | cucumbers, cubed |
| 6 | onions, peeled and chopped |
| 4 dl | vinegar (10%) |
| 8 dl | water |
| 4 ts | salt |
| 5 dl | sugar |
| 4 ts | ground mustard |
| 2 dl | wheat flour |
| 4 ts | curry powder |
What I did I brought the brine (vinegar, water, salt, sugar) to boil and then added the cucumbers and onions. Let cook on low for 10 minutes. Then mix the mustard with the flour and add some water to make a thick paste. Then thicken the boiling mixture with the mustard paste and let cook for 10-15 more minutes. Finally spice with curry and fill into clean, hot jars as usual.
The finished products
Here are the results of the cucumber frenzy! The relish ended up a bit watery but very mustard-y and generally tasty. The next time I would use a bit less water, as the cucumbers do add quite a lot themselves.
