It's amazing how Adam seem to answer every question possible without having to be asked. All I was thinking after all that boiling of vinegar was if that didn't smell awful and lo and behold, he answered that too.
It's probably a familiar smell for anyone who's ever had to descale a water kettle. It reeks, but it's one of the fastest, cheapest and safest way to remove limescale buildup.
I did the boiling vinegar version once long before I saw this video. My parents were wondering what the hell was going on when they smelled the vinegar fumes permeating the house.
@@ultru3525 I prefer citric acid for descaling. No vinegar smell and for coffee makers it seems like it doesn't need as much flushing to remove the excess. It's also recommended by the manufacturer of my dishwasher for cleaning the tub and is a lot less expensive than the prepackaged cleaners.
When it comes to pickles, my Indian wife's family has introduced me to what might now be my favourite condiment - achar! They describe homemade achar as being "pickled" in oil and a binch of indian spices, and left out in the sun. I suspect there's some fermentation going on because of this, and it's frickin delicious. I would love to see a video on achar from you at somem point; you always have interesting stuff to add on these topics :) Love from Sweden!
@@MrTheSmoon oh yah obviously I’m just referencing the small thing where Ethan made a video responding to Adam’s deep frying video, and the two fanbases kinda blew up at each other
Hey Adam, a video i'd be interested in seeing is one similar to your dough one, but with mashed potatoes. Just looking at how much, if any, milk, cream, eggs, butter... to add and what it does to the mashed potatoes. Cheers
That could be a great idea ^^ One of the recipes I would like him to try is Joel Robuchon's mashed potatoes, he's a great french chef, famous for a recipe of mashed where he use a lot of butter, like almost a quarter of the potatoes XD
Advice for all non-Americans here, check how acidic your vinegar is. I made this mistake when trying Ethan Chlebowski's version (heinz vinegar - ~5% acid); didn't check that i have been using vinegar twice as strong.
This is actually very good point. Here where I live our "cheap vinegar" is 10% so its way too strong for these pickled onions at undiluted. I know because I made that same mistake.
I always buy 75% acidic acid vinegar online, in an effort to save space and reduce the environmental impact of shipping. The downside is all the dilution math involved
“White distilled vinegar, more often used as a cleaning product than as a food” That’s definitely something I notice as a Canadian when in the States. Here white vinegar is quite common as a condiment, especially for things like fries. The first time my mother tried getting fries with non-malt vinegar in the US, she was deeply confused by the fact that when she asked for “not malt, just clear white vinegar” the server responded “… the stuff we clean the floors with? You want to *eat* that?”
I get a similar feeling whenever a recipe calls for baking soda. It makes sense though, both cooking and cleaning can be seen as applied chemistry, so of course acids and bases are essential to both, and vinegar and baking soda are cheap, easy ways to decrease or increase pH levels respectively.
Yeah... a lot of restaurants in the US, even of the sit-down variety, simply don't have any white vinegar at all. Since moving here, I actually considered buying a box of vinegar packets at one point so that I could stash some in my purse. It makes no sense to me that Americans have salt and vinegar chips, but use ketchup on their fries, yet think ketchup chips and vinegar on fries seem bizarre.
My dad used to do this in little bowls, he would stick a beet, some vinegar, and slices. Sit for like a few hours. They would be cool and pink and go with anything. Pickled onions are awesome, so versatile and tasty.
Worth pointing out that the vinegar you're using is at a 5% concentration. Here in Northern Europe vinegar is often sold at 9-10% strength, in which case using half water is probably recommended.
The reason I came here. Used 10% vinegar with the 50/50 vinegar/water ratio and after rinsing them a bit added them to noodles. Way too strong and started to experience digestive discomfort immediately. Should be kinda obvious to check the concentration first but hey now I know. I will be using 1/5 ratio for now on or even less so I can skip the rinsing part.
from what I remember too, be careful of 4% vinegar because it's not as certain to kill off any microorganisms, and it's flat out unsafe for canning or fermentation
he did also add that the acidity should kill off any ick (though fermentation wasn't recommended like this) and you could keep it for a couple weeks pretty safely, where in 4% that might not be the case and it's worth watching out for
I have been making these for about the last decade. I have also experimented with many of the techniques, but personally landed on the 50/50 water to vinegar ratio. I heat it up with some salt, whole peppercorns, and mustard seeds. I do let it cool a bit before pouring over the onions to at least preserve some of the texture. I also like to add a tiny bit of beet juice after things have cooled or even brine from some pickled beets. Really amps up the color and adds a touch of earthiness. It’s hard to go wrong, though. Just give them a shot!
I also made these, and boy they were acidic! But I used 10% white vinegar, and now noticed that Adam had 5% vinegar. I guess I have to dilute it next time.
His tip at the end is really good. This year I had a bunch of cukes all at once in the garden and I took a jar of pickles that was empty of pickles but full of liquid, and just cut up the fresh cukes into the liquid. In a day or two you’ve got this kind of hybrid between a pickled cucumber (a “pickle”) and a fresh one. Still retains a bunch of crunch but also starts to take in the flavors of the pickle juice.
Mr. Ragusea's recipes for refrigerator pickles convinced me to make my own. I used to home-can pickles when I lived out in the sticks, but now I have the luxury of refrigeration and love all the different kinds of pickled vegetables that are possible with just a few basic ingredients and a day or two of patience.
Tremendous video about a tremendous food. My sister in law was the first person I saw quick-pickle onions a few years ago, for tacos, and I was in love with the pickled onion forever more. I've made it cold and hot, and I always have a jar in the fridge ready for any meal (a tremendous addition to a breakfast sandwich), but I never had the patience to figure out which was better or why, because any pink pickled onion was better than no pickled onion. In small but very tangible ways, this channel makes life a little better, and a little more tasty. Great stuff.
Gotta say, my favorite way to pickle onions is also probably the easiest: 1. Buy a jar of bread and butter pickles 2. Eat the pickles 3. Slice a bunch of red onions and add them to the brine you didn't have to make 4. Wait a day or two 5. Enjoy delicious pink b&b onions This works especially well if you haven't quite finished the purchased pickles because then you don't have a couple days without pickles. You can do this with just about any veggie and type of pickle brine, just be sure to slice whatever raw veg pretty thinly.
If you're a a fan of dill pickles/Polski ogorki, that leftover brine also works great for onion, carrots, lebanese cucumber, etc. Only if you like the strong flavour of dill weed though.
Adam, be careful about reusing pickling solutions that you made pickles in before. The osmotic action of salt and sugar will gradually raise the pH as water comes out of new vegetables or fruit, and increase the likelihood of creating an environment that’s hospitable to mold and yeasts. I made a batch of umeboshi with a standard salt and citric acid quantity, and used some of the rendered juices to start a new batch, bottling some of the leftover juice. After bottling the juice from the second batch, I left both bottles in my cupboard for a few weeks before checking on them. The first bottle was still clean and clear, but the second bottle had blue mold and cloudy strings of bacteria growing in it. Consider pointing this out in your podcast this weekend, please.
You can always use a pH meter to check the acidity and add distilled vinegar to compensate for the dilution. As for the salt and sugar, you can always give it a taste and add more according to taste.
that's a good tip for anyone thinking about doing so but he specifically points out at the start of the video to not put these anywhere else than the fridge. Seems redundant to point it out again.
Anyone doing things at room temperature like this should be weighing their ingredients too so that they know their exact salinity. If you do 2% salt by weight for example then all you have to do is add 2% salt for the new fresh ingredients as well. Osmosis isn't a factor in that case since everything is uniform, and any pH below 4.5 is food safe (which, if your pickles are >4.5...you'd know, but a pH meter is always nice)
FWIW, as someone who made a living making pickles for almost 5 years, the amount of spices in that container is probably enough for 1-2 onions worth of pickles. If Adam used 1/2 an onion, I can see why it would be so "spiced."
Do you know where I can find pickled vegetables in US markets? I discovered them and really like them, but I can never seem to find anything besides pickled cucumber.
I'll eat anything pickled. Whenever I can see that I won't be able to eat a vegetable before it goes bad, I pickle it. This led, among other things, to the discovery that celery slices make surprisingly good pickles. Many years ago I pickled a giant jar of green tomatoes with vanilla, put them on a shelf in the shed so they could mature, and forgot about them. I found them seven years later, and it was one of the best (pickled) things I ever tasted. I ate the full jar in less than a week - and only later found out that green tomatoes contain solanine and you should be careful how many you eat of them a day. Luckily I survived without so much as a stomach ache.
Standard recipe here for anything pickled is 1:2:3 ratio of 12% vinegar, sugar and water. This is *way* too sweet; but it's an old recipe from back before refrigeration that just kind of stuck. Adding a crap-ton of sugar reduces water activity and inhibits the growth of mold and bacteria quite effectively; but it just makes pickled onion taste like "onion marmalade" and that's awful.
You may be right about the solanine; a quick googling shows that (some claim that) fermentation breaks down solanine and that solanine in potatoes can be neutralised with vinegar, so the same should apply for green tomatoes. The vanilla was only for taste, as I remembered that my mother had once served green tomatoes pickled with vinegar, sugar and vanilla. I was slightly disappointed in the taste of mine a couple of days after I had made them (which is probably why I forgot about them for so long), but when I "found" them again... wow.
7 years??! In a Shed??! OMG! Here in Atlanta where it gets up to 95-100f *outside* of the shed in the summer, even one year would turn them to green slime.
Homemade pickles (from the garden preferably) are one of those grab-a-fork-and-stand-in-the-fridge type snacks. We made a lot of pickles growing up. Cucumbers and onions go well together in the same pickle.
White onions and half beet juice/vinegar is my go-to, the beets add a hint of earthy flavor that pairs with the bite of the onion, plus they turn a deeper shade of pink to eventually almost purple.
I feel like the pickling craze has really gotten a new drive within the last year. Friends of mine that I never talked to about it have started, I've been making onions and other pickles for about a year and a half now, youtubers are making more and more pickling videos and so on. I'm all for it!
How do you eat them ? Never heared of pickled onions. I know pickled cucumbers , but pickled onions ? Do you eat them as they are as a snack ? Or are you just putting them on stuff ?
Adam I regret not discovering you years ago. You make perfect videos. Nothing but the facts. No wasting time. No cussing. No time wasted trying to look cute. Lots of science. You set an amazing standard. I subscribed and can’t wait to watch more of your videos. Thank you for what you do.
I've never actually done this with vinegar before. I've always used lime juice, but I mainly use them for tacos or nachos. I also don't just do onions but serrano chilis with salt. They're really good.
I made pink pickled carrots... But that was because I bought a packet of rainbow carrots and one variety has a pink skin that leeches colour onto the white ones. I did them the traditional canning method as I wanted to preserve them for using in sushi and tacos year round (I did a few flavours). These ones are really good on falafels, and now I want to make some. All my onions I grew were super tiny, so it would work fine for a couple servings.
The other day made fridge marinated mushrooms with water, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, and anise seeds. Using the leftover liquid as a soup base made the tastiest soup I ever had.
I appreciate the no BS videos. Summarizing the findings right at the start is very welcome. I'm still going to watch the rest because I love pickled onions and I'm interested, but glad to know there's no better way than I already do it. "We don't eat these pickles on their own" - speak for yourself!
Thanks so much Adam! I literally just bought the ingredients to make pickled onions and planned to make them tonight! I’ll definitely be using this video.
@@eXJonSnow for a burger that's what you'd want, yes, but if you cut them straight for pickling (or any use where they'll be sitting for a while), they'll actually lose more pungency compared to cutting them the other way. obviously as adam's shown, for pickling it doesn't matter much in the end, but if you don't cut them straight, you instead will get that pungency when you bite into the onions, instead of it being lost into the air. probably.
Something I didn't see you mention (and I actually learned from a hello fresh recipe), but for a quick pickling solution you can submerge the onions in the acid and microwave it for 30 seconds. Did this with radishes and it worked surprisingly well.
Yeah, definitely not "every way" of making them. I was hoping for the chamber vacuum machine method, but I guess not many people have one. My OH watched as the bowl of onions/vinegar/salt boiled. When the lid popped open she passed me an oven glove. Grinning, I put my finger in to the cold bowl. Physics. Now I'm going to have to compare how boiling with heat and boiling by vacuum affects the texture...
@@thunderbob20 I figured, but I don't remember anyone asking for my input on "OH" being short for "Other Half"...I don't approve. (I'm joking in case it's not clear, lol)
Your note about the Bayless method is spot on. I use the juice of two limes added to a 50% white vinegar/water solution that I do heat, but just enough to dissolve the salt and sugar. I do run the cut onions under hot tap water, but just for a moment.
The way we usually do it around the household is lime juice, oregano and habanero. It works great ! It’s herbaceous, spicy and lemony ! You should try it Adam it’s delicious !
I love the nod (may be unintentional) to Alton Brown's show Good Eats, with that Kosher salt container. My dad is a huge Alton fan, and I grew up watching that show. Great episode, by the way! As usual!
Next do a caramelized onion shootout! I'm fondest of the method using high heat and frequent stirring, and deglazing when the frond is close to burning. It's the fastest method without adjusting pH (which may lead to mushiness) but it is definitely hands-on and most home cooks don't seem to use high heat like cooks do.
This is perfect because for the past month I've been eating these every day, i'm obsessed they make everything taste even better. i've made them with rice vinegar 1:1 with water and a few tbsp sugar, i've also put thinly sliced cucumber and radish in which works great as well. i'm for sure trying only filling them halfway. Pickled onion worship!!
I just realized that this channel actually gave me a little push towards cooking and this is super cool because I'm not going to starve now (probably).
if you want bright pink ones, add some shreds of red cabbage! that's what I do and it's very pretty, plus the pickled cabbage is actually really good too (although I'm sure you could just use cabbage/beet puree or something too)
I just realized how much effort you use in using descriptive language when specifically expressing what your opinion is. You avoid vague language. Great video as always! We appreciate the effort!
Hey Adam. These are my favorite topping on the vegetarian nachos my girlfriend orders at a bar we go to, and I’ve been trying to find them in the store FOREVER. You have officially made my day and possibly ruined hers (she hates my onion breath) 😆
I am SO HAPPY you at least mentioned re-using the pickle juice in the video. At home my dad asked me the very same thing! I of course gave it a try but instead of throwing cucumbers after a batch of red onions, I used even more red onions (since the first batch got eaten rather quickly) and noted a distinct increase in pungency and lack of sweetness in the second batch of pickled red onions!
"Imagine the onion as a globe, with the blossom and root end representing the North and South Poles." Adam has an interesting way of looking at things sometimes.
so funny, we were literally discussing how to pickle onions at work the other day! We normally use the lime method since we mostly sell tacos and other mexican style dishes, and Mexican styled pickle onions are made not just with limes, but key limes which tend to be even more acidic. In our case you WANT the strong lime flavor since many dishes typically also go with a squeeze of lime, but the new chef is convinced we could do vinegar only and have the same results. Definitely going to try a half and half method and see if I like what comes out
1:45 I cut my onions like that while making onion fritters - didn't know the direction would affect how pungent the slices would be. Coincidentally, that pungency is kind of the 'essence' that I want to flavour my fritters - I immediately soak the slices in slightly salted cold water to extract it more into the liquid that I'd add to the batter later...
THIS. My wife is the *exact* same. Initially, I was the home chef. Then, after she got seriously into Hello Fresh, she started experimenting and now she switches to a new ethnic cuisine every few months. Now she can re-make just about anything she's done from memory. She surpassed my meager culinary skill a few years back; I couldn't be a happier loser. 😋🤤😁
I've been doing my picked onions alongside pickled red cabbage recently. I use them both for the same thing, I like them both, so I figured I might as well just mix them together. Gives an even more vibrant colour, too.
Great experiment! Just missing a little note about the acetic acid concentration in the white vinegar you are using, I'm guessing 4-5% - from an international perspective, the "default" white vinegar you can buy here in Sweden (called ättika) has a 24% acetic acid concentration, which requires some care with the measurements!
This is a very good point and he doesn't mention it at all. At 3:45 it looks like he is using 5% as you suggested. My local has about 5 different types with varying levels.
Yes, this! Confusing vinegar and ättika is a mistake you only make once, that's for sure 😅
2 роки тому+4
Great point. In Hungary we have mostly 10% and 20% concentrations, I use the former in food, and the latter to clean my coffee pot, it removes limescale like a charm :D
This is what I was thinking as well. The stuff that I'd think of as my local version of distilled white vinegar (väkiviinaetikka or spritättika) has 10% acetic acid concentration. It's interesting what sort of things we take as given so that it doesn't really even occur to us that things could be different -- such as the acid concentration in distilled vinegar.
Adam, I just really love how you casually add a bit of chemistry and biology. Like it is fun to watch because of the food but it is very satisfying when recogning or relearning theory. You're definetly one of my favorite youtubers
It would be an interesting follow-up experiment to keep making pickled onions with the leftover brine from the previous batch over and over, measuring the ph each time (and tasting each time) to see the difference over time. How many times can the liquid be reused safely?
Yeah, if you're not doing a lactic fermented pickle, you really shouldn't reuse it for very long. But that's the beauty of lactic fermentation - you can keep it going almost indefinitely. For that you need a specific % of salt by weight, but it's different depending on what veggie you're using.
@@Dessun if a hot brine process is used you should be able to effectively restart that clock every time you make the pickles since you have an almost sterile brine at the start of every batch, which makes the number of times you can do this effectively limited by the rising pH of the vinegar with every batch.
@@garethbaus5471 you can kill bacteria but some bacteria emits toxic waste(toxins ? idk) that can't be killed with heat and idk if those can accumulate with each batches
Hey Adam, I’ve got an experiment you might find interesting to try. I haven’t seen anyone else so this: When it comes to cooking with wine, it’d be interesting to just cook wine down alone, by itself. Boil off the alcohol and let it reduce just by itself. Do this for a number of different wines (of varying price points and perceived quality etc) and see how you discern the taste, how strong the flavor is (I.e., how much flavor would it actually impart in recipes?) etc. You could try this with both white and red wine. I’m sure you could fit in some sciencey stuff to talk about in there as well which is always a hit on your channel. just a thought!
"Hello Fresh is the first Carbon Neutral meal kit" That gave me the biggest laugh I've had in almost a decade. Thanks for that. Seriously, a good 10 minutes of uncontrolable laughter.
I love how realistic your cooking style is! No need to dirty another spoon, mix it with your knife. No need to put the onions in a fancy bowl you’ll just use once for blanching, just blanch in the final vessel. Cooking shows make me feel pressured to dirty 20 dishes unnecessarily 😭
I the Levant (and other areas surrounding) the second most popular pickles is Pink colored Turnips. The pink is achieved by adding a few slices of red beets or some red beet juice in with the pickle. The most popular pickle is cucumber or snake gourd, You get that EVERYWHERE.
I'm far too lazy to actually get red onions to pickle them, so I stole the beet trick from the pickled turnip recipes and throw in a beet! I find the color you get nicer, and the beet tastes quite nice
@@aragusea I would love to make some snake gourd pickles but it's almost impossible to find in the US, and I have black thumbs (everything I plant dies) so I can't even grow it myself 😞
I can't like this video enough... MORE COOL CONDIMENT VIDEOS! This was awesome. I was able to make a big batch while my computer was spinning to print a large document ... at work (remote).
"It's not like the olden days, where you had to pickle everything that you grew right before the winter, these you can make in small batches, it's fine." That's still a very useful way of doing things for rural homesteaders. Believe it or not, there are still places in the US where there isn't just a grocery store a couple miles away.
I think maybe he was leaning more towards the fact that people have home refrigeration now, whereas historically (dependent on area) that refrigeration was only seasonally available, and fresh produce would probably have been spoiled before the weather became cold enough for longer storage?
@@SunnyMorningPancakes Yeah, that's true for most people, however, when you have a large enough garden, you still have to do something with it before it goes bad, and it's not all gonna fit in the fridge/freezer. Pickling or canning, and then throwing it up on the shelf or down in a basement, out in the garage, etc., still makes a lot of sense in that case. It's true that commercial produce is available all year, but everything you grow is something you don't have to buy, something that doesn't have to be shipped halfway around the world to get to you, and home grown produce is still just as seasonal as it has historically ever been.
dont forget about the OG pickling method, lactic acid fermentation! it gives the onions a destinct and very savoury taste, with a lot of umami, and a strong but appetizing sulfurous lovestank. it's not a quick method, but a lovely little project with addictive results! and supposedly incredibly healthy too.
I accidentally discovered cold-pickled onions when experimenting with making home vinegars. I was wanting to save off all the vinegar, but didn't want to ditch all the onions. Yes, the texture was a bit slimy compared to the fresher version, but the complexity of the flavors was amazing. They also lasted for over a year, FWIW.
Adam Ragusea, Max Miller, And Best Ever Food Review show have been amazing at making me the most curious and entertained by food iv think i have ever been.
About the quality of the vinegar, while I haven't been able to really tell the difference between the cheap and expensive vinegars either, one thing to note is that at least here in my country the cheap ones (labeled only as "vinegar") are a byproduct in oil refinement, while the bit more expensive ones (labeled "spirit vinegar", not sure about the english term) are made with grain. While it's hard to tell the difference in taste, I still kind of feel more relaxed eating the one distilled from grain 😁
"First bisect the onion longitudinally, pole to pole..." "...and everything equilibrates across the entire mass." I absolutely _love_ Adam's sesquipedalian vocabulary.
Hi Adam! Love your channel! When we pickle onions we use a mandolin to slice them real thin, then we add a squirt of real lime juice ( no more than a tablespoon) ans pinch of kosher salt. We seal the container and shake to distribute the lima and salt. Two mins and they are ready for Tacos!
If you have the time, Id highly recommend making lacto-fermented onions. Slice the onions, put them into a sealable jar, pour some salt water on them, and let them rest in a warm place for a week or so. When they start to bubble, they're done! The most complex and delicious way to make onions, and it holds for forever in the fridge.
My grandma used to make it for the next day when I as a child had breakfast with a tomato (just harvested from the garden) salad or sandwich with freshly baked bread! They are AMAZING!!!
Hi Adam! I suggest trying the lime ones again but with a lot less lime (maybe a couple of limes). You can also try to dice them. That's the way it is generally done in Yucatan with cochinita pibil. What we do is to dice the onion, put it in a bowl with the juice of a couple of limes, some mexican oregano (1 tsp apron.) and a habanero (or half) leave it out of the fridge. We generally do this one to two hours before eating. I think you'll like those.
I was in Romona California and ate at Mananas who had the absolute best pickled red onions I had ever had. Now this video is up and my life is complete.
so in terms of the samples 3 and 4, the difference between full-vinegar and half-vinegar would be that the full vinegar ones ostensibly taste better as a food compliment, such as on the nachos you used as a test bed, but the half-vinegar ones might be a better choice for eating by themselves, perhaps as part of a crudite platter? Crackers and sliced meats and such? Just trying to get a sense of the taste.
I've done half vinegar traditional dill pickles, and I'd agree with that. They're good on their own or in more mild sandwiches, but not quite enough flavour to have in a burger. Still good, and I'm glad I made them (I grew too many cucumbers this year).
The best method I ever tested was to cook the onions in a bit of olive oil with lot of the spice you want and a little bit of sugar, until they are really soft and transparent but with still a little crunch Boil water+vinegar 55/45 , onion in a clean jar, hot vinegar on top, wait till it's at room temp and then in the fridge for 12h et voila, best picked onion you will ever taste
Thanks a lot for the Verity , I will definitely try all of them. My currently favourite method is, as demonstrated by My Name is Andong channel...more ir less, to submerge sliced onions in a salty and vinegary boiling water solution, covered for around 15 minutes and drain. I keep the excess brine refrigirated and use it as soup base later on, combining with pasta water or broth.
Wow this video is incredible timing! I’ve been thinking a lot about pickled vegetables lately, actually more about fermented ones like the “old school” pickled ones. I think you may want to look more into the process of fermenting vegetables. I recommend “The Art of Fermentation” by Sandor Katz, who actually contradicts some of what you said about the difficulty of fermentation. The reality is, people have been using fermentation as a very robust form of preservation for maybe 10,000 years… it does not require complex tools and measurements to be safe, nor does it require anything close to sterility. Cleanliness is fine. I think if your willing to smoke your own meat in the back yard you should definitely try some veggie fermentation! Kimchi maybe? I’d love to see it. I think a lot of why many people are a little intimidated by fermentation is fear of botulism, but what’s funny is botulism is actually not really a threat given the correct pH levels, which can easily be measured by taste, tho pH strips are cheap as well. The community of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts that does the actual fermentation inhibit the growth of mold and other contaminants. In fact, IIRC botulism was not really a recorded food contaminate until the development of canning processes, which produces a sterile environment that will enable the rapid growth of botulism if the spores are not killed during the canning process (by reaching 121 C for a while). Love the video, pickled onions are the best!!!
My British mother likes British style pickleds, pearl onions in malt vinegar. Goes great with a ploughman's, and so pungent that biting into one flings the smell from the back of your throat to the front of your nose.
The healthiest pickled onions 3/4 apple cider vinegar 1/4 water add a few allspice and pop in fridge for a couple of days also do the same recipe with cooked sliced beetroot, fabulous
I always use a mix of lime and vinegar. The citrus note is very nice, but yes, pure lime is too strong. I also do a version of this with regular rice vinegar mixed with lime juice. Rice vinegar adds its own distinct, less "industrial" acidity and the lime just brightens the mix up. Salt and sugar (and pepper sometimes) are essential. I also make this with fresh bean sprouts, green onions and / or matchstick cut carrots. Thank you for the test! very interesting result, I will try the blanching method, as I usually do it raw, no heat.
Mexican here. In the mayan peninsula what they do is pickle red onions in sour orange with salt, oregano and habanero pepper. That is called xnipec sauce (pronounced "sh-nee-peck"). The lime juice thing is basically a substitute of the sour orange. Vinager also works. The key is the oregano and the habanero.
That sounds like what I ate in Belize. Lots of food stalls have a jar of mysterious pickle topping and I wasn’t sure what was in it, but it definitely had oregano. Some were a cabbage and red onion blend.
I really wish I liked pickled onions! On paper they sound like a highly versatile culinary commodity. Also, as you mentioned they seem to be the hottest thing right now with cooking youtubers. My sister makes them all the time, but I've tried a couple different recipes she made and really did not care for them... Perhaps some modification to the recipe could make them more palatable to me? I don't know. It's kind of a bummer that so many recipes online use them now, but I really just don't like the taste.
You can probably train yourself to like them if you try them with a few different other foods over a period of time. I have heard 8-12 times trying something you don't currently like will change your mind, you just have to decide whether it's worth it! (my partner did this with olives and will now happily buy and eat them. Took several years to get there though, trying different kinds every 6 months or so.)
Don't worry, you don't have to like every food. I myself don't care that much for pickled onions either. To me they taste like mild onions that are sour, which is not that special. But I can understand that some people like them.
@@justforplaylists To me it's just a general funk. I don't care much for pickled cucumbers either, with the exception of kosher dill, which I love. It's the smell and the "sourness" that are the primary offenders of the onions(I love sour, but again it just tastes funky when it comes to the pickled onions) I know kosher dill pickles are sweeter than regular, but i also hate sweet pickles. Not sure why it's just kosher dill that like. If pickled onions tasted more like kosher dill maybe I'd like them more, but I wouldn't know how that's accomplished. :P
hey adam, something that comes to my scientifically drilled mind when i see this video and the kenji story as well is that none of these tests are double blind and i think that could be a fun thing for you to do in in some future videos. just have someone relabel you samples and write down which is which, you'll try them without knowing what it is, write down (or record) what you think and afterwards match them to the sample. i'm very sure that there are many taste tests where confirmation bias is a huge factor.
I had good results adding more salt to my mixes too. Since the salt draws out moisture from the vegetable, it leaves a crunchier product, and works well with cucumbers.
It's amazing how Adam seem to answer every question possible without having to be asked. All I was thinking after all that boiling of vinegar was if that didn't smell awful and lo and behold, he answered that too.
Adam is very good at creating content for a real audience. He doesnt just put something out there.
It's probably a familiar smell for anyone who's ever had to descale a water kettle. It reeks, but it's one of the fastest, cheapest and safest way to remove limescale buildup.
I did the boiling vinegar version once long before I saw this video. My parents were wondering what the hell was going on when they smelled the vinegar fumes permeating the house.
@@ultru3525 I prefer citric acid for descaling. No vinegar smell and for coffee makers it seems like it doesn't need as much flushing to remove the excess.
It's also recommended by the manufacturer of my dishwasher for cleaning the tub and is a lot less expensive than the prepackaged cleaners.
@@Strasedon Never tried it, but no doubt it can work just as well, though I imagine it’s not quite as cheap as vinegar.
When it comes to pickles, my Indian wife's family has introduced me to what might now be my favourite condiment - achar! They describe homemade achar as being "pickled" in oil and a binch of indian spices, and left out in the sun. I suspect there's some fermentation going on because of this, and it's frickin delicious. I would love to see a video on achar from you at somem point; you always have interesting stuff to add on these topics :)
Love from Sweden!
Adam Ragusea and Ethan Chlebowski can at least agree that pickling onions is always a good idea
i feel like ethan and adam would agree on more than just that
@@MrTheSmoon They'll most likely vibe over Mexican food. Both of them seem to like Mexican food
they'll find a way to get into the details and disagree lol. When an academic meets a consulting bro god kills a kitten.
@@MrTheSmoon oh yah obviously I’m just referencing the small thing where Ethan made a video responding to Adam’s deep frying video, and the two fanbases kinda blew up at each other
@@MrTheSmoon they would literally disagree on every single other topic
Hey Adam, a video i'd be interested in seeing is one similar to your dough one, but with mashed potatoes. Just looking at how much, if any, milk, cream, eggs, butter... to add and what it does to the mashed potatoes. Cheers
That could be a great idea ^^
One of the recipes I would like him to try is Joel Robuchon's mashed potatoes, he's a great french chef, famous for a recipe of mashed where he use a lot of butter, like almost a quarter of the potatoes XD
On the list!
My mother swears by cream cheese in hers
Eggs? Is that really something people do?
my mom always puts mayo in hers but i don't think i'm a fan
Advice for all non-Americans here, check how acidic your vinegar is. I made this mistake when trying Ethan Chlebowski's version (heinz vinegar - ~5% acid); didn't check that i have been using vinegar twice as strong.
This is actually very good point. Here where I live our "cheap vinegar" is 10% so its way too strong for these pickled onions at undiluted. I know because I made that same mistake.
I always buy 75% acidic acid vinegar online, in an effort to save space and reduce the environmental impact of shipping. The downside is all the dilution math involved
“White distilled vinegar, more often used as a cleaning product than as a food”
That’s definitely something I notice as a Canadian when in the States. Here white vinegar is quite common as a condiment, especially for things like fries. The first time my mother tried getting fries with non-malt vinegar in the US, she was deeply confused by the fact that when she asked for “not malt, just clear white vinegar” the server responded “… the stuff we clean the floors with? You want to *eat* that?”
I get a similar feeling whenever a recipe calls for baking soda. It makes sense though, both cooking and cleaning can be seen as applied chemistry, so of course acids and bases are essential to both, and vinegar and baking soda are cheap, easy ways to decrease or increase pH levels respectively.
Yeah... a lot of restaurants in the US, even of the sit-down variety, simply don't have any white vinegar at all. Since moving here, I actually considered buying a box of vinegar packets at one point so that I could stash some in my purse. It makes no sense to me that Americans have salt and vinegar chips, but use ketchup on their fries, yet think ketchup chips and vinegar on fries seem bizarre.
That last statement is weird to me even as someone from the us 😭
Why the hell would you clean floors with vinegar? America is such a backwards place.
There's no way they said that. Every American home has cooking vinegar
My dad used to do this in little bowls, he would stick a beet, some vinegar, and slices. Sit for like a few hours. They would be cool and pink and go with anything. Pickled onions are awesome, so versatile and tasty.
i wish i had a dad
@@anmolbargujar i wish u had a dad
I love pickled beets as well
@@anmolbargujar i wish I had pickled onions
@@SimuLord "do you know who my father is?"
"why mother didnt tell you?"
Worth pointing out that the vinegar you're using is at a 5% concentration. Here in Northern Europe vinegar is often sold at 9-10% strength, in which case using half water is probably recommended.
The reason I came here. Used 10% vinegar with the 50/50 vinegar/water ratio and after rinsing them a bit added them to noodles. Way too strong and started to experience digestive discomfort immediately. Should be kinda obvious to check the concentration first but hey now I know. I will be using 1/5 ratio for now on or even less so I can skip the rinsing part.
from what I remember too, be careful of 4% vinegar because it's not as certain to kill off any microorganisms, and it's flat out unsafe for canning or fermentation
@@a-bird-lover Yeah this recipe is just for taste and not preservation.
@@Skeptic2006 I know, just adding the warning.
he did also add that the acidity should kill off any ick (though fermentation wasn't recommended like this) and you could keep it for a couple weeks pretty safely, where in 4% that might not be the case and it's worth watching out for
I have been making these for about the last decade. I have also experimented with many of the techniques, but personally landed on the 50/50 water to vinegar ratio. I heat it up with some salt, whole peppercorns, and mustard seeds. I do let it cool a bit before pouring over the onions to at least preserve some of the texture. I also like to add a tiny bit of beet juice after things have cooled or even brine from some pickled beets. Really amps up the color and adds a touch of earthiness. It’s hard to go wrong, though. Just give them a shot!
Seems like the best idea is to do a lil bit of every technique.
Pepper?
_,,Porsche Cayenne. _*_Like the peppa."_*
(Carmela Soprano showing off her Porsche Cayenne to Ginny Sac, The Sopranos, 1999)
Red peppercorns are another option to enhance the color, I'm going to try your idea with beets. Thanks.
this one sounds SO GOOD thank you for sharing I'm definitely gonna try this :)
I also made these, and boy they were acidic! But I used 10% white vinegar, and now noticed that Adam had 5% vinegar. I guess I have to dilute it next time.
His tip at the end is really good. This year I had a bunch of cukes all at once in the garden and I took a jar of pickles that was empty of pickles but full of liquid, and just cut up the fresh cukes into the liquid. In a day or two you’ve got this kind of hybrid between a pickled cucumber (a “pickle”) and a fresh one. Still retains a bunch of crunch but also starts to take in the flavors of the pickle juice.
picked onions
Picked onions
Picked Onions
picked onions
picked onions
Picked onions
god i love how straight to the point you are, never fails to make me happy even after years
What are the odds of this being uploaded literally while I'm typing "Adam Ragusea pickled onions" into the search bar? Great timing, Adam!
YOU LIE!!
Are you a wizard!?
depends if you heard on the podcast that mondays video would b this and knew his upload time lol, if that then yeah p high otherwise 🤯
Type Adam Ragusea tofu next please
The odds are zero because that didn't happen
Mr. Ragusea's recipes for refrigerator pickles convinced me to make my own. I used to home-can pickles when I lived out in the sticks, but now I have the luxury of refrigeration and love all the different kinds of pickled vegetables that are possible with just a few basic ingredients and a day or two of patience.
Tremendous video about a tremendous food. My sister in law was the first person I saw quick-pickle onions a few years ago, for tacos, and I was in love with the pickled onion forever more. I've made it cold and hot, and I always have a jar in the fridge ready for any meal (a tremendous addition to a breakfast sandwich), but I never had the patience to figure out which was better or why, because any pink pickled onion was better than no pickled onion.
In small but very tangible ways, this channel makes life a little better, and a little more tasty. Great stuff.
Gotta say, my favorite way to pickle onions is also probably the easiest:
1. Buy a jar of bread and butter pickles
2. Eat the pickles
3. Slice a bunch of red onions and add them to the brine you didn't have to make
4. Wait a day or two
5. Enjoy delicious pink b&b onions
This works especially well if you haven't quite finished the purchased pickles because then you don't have a couple days without pickles.
You can do this with just about any veggie and type of pickle brine, just be sure to slice whatever raw veg pretty thinly.
that's a great idea!
If you're a a fan of dill pickles/Polski ogorki, that leftover brine also works great for onion, carrots, lebanese cucumber, etc.
Only if you like the strong flavour of dill weed though.
whats bread and butter pickles ?
THAT is absolutely brilliant!!! 😊😊😊
@stevethea5250 pickles that have a bread and butter flavor. Sweet pickles basically.
Adam, be careful about reusing pickling solutions that you made pickles in before. The osmotic action of salt and sugar will gradually raise the pH as water comes out of new vegetables or fruit, and increase the likelihood of creating an environment that’s hospitable to mold and yeasts. I made a batch of umeboshi with a standard salt and citric acid quantity, and used some of the rendered juices to start a new batch, bottling some of the leftover juice. After bottling the juice from the second batch, I left both bottles in my cupboard for a few weeks before checking on them. The first bottle was still clean and clear, but the second bottle had blue mold and cloudy strings of bacteria growing in it. Consider pointing this out in your podcast this weekend, please.
Thanks, I always wondered about this. The pickling solution gets weaker and more diluted with each use too.
You can always use a pH meter to check the acidity and add distilled vinegar to compensate for the dilution. As for the salt and sugar, you can always give it a taste and add more according to taste.
that's a good tip for anyone thinking about doing so but he specifically points out at the start of the video to not put these anywhere else than the fridge. Seems redundant to point it out again.
Again store in fridge, not in the ideal environments for mold growth
Anyone doing things at room temperature like this should be weighing their ingredients too so that they know their exact salinity. If you do 2% salt by weight for example then all you have to do is add 2% salt for the new fresh ingredients as well. Osmosis isn't a factor in that case since everything is uniform, and any pH below 4.5 is food safe (which, if your pickles are >4.5...you'd know, but a pH meter is always nice)
FWIW, as someone who made a living making pickles for almost 5 years, the amount of spices in that container is probably enough for 1-2 onions worth of pickles. If Adam used 1/2 an onion, I can see why it would be so "spiced."
Folga wooga imoga womp
@@bertaboy9078 ok
@@bertaboy9078 laga ooger loap
pickle salesman
Do you know where I can find pickled vegetables in US markets? I discovered them and really like them, but I can never seem to find anything besides pickled cucumber.
I'll eat anything pickled. Whenever I can see that I won't be able to eat a vegetable before it goes bad, I pickle it. This led, among other things, to the discovery that celery slices make surprisingly good pickles. Many years ago I pickled a giant jar of green tomatoes with vanilla, put them on a shelf in the shed so they could mature, and forgot about them. I found them seven years later, and it was one of the best (pickled) things I ever tasted. I ate the full jar in less than a week - and only later found out that green tomatoes contain solanine and you should be careful how many you eat of them a day. Luckily I survived without so much as a stomach ache.
Standard recipe here for anything pickled is 1:2:3 ratio of 12% vinegar, sugar and water. This is *way* too sweet; but it's an old recipe from back before refrigeration that just kind of stuck. Adding a crap-ton of sugar reduces water activity and inhibits the growth of mold and bacteria quite effectively; but it just makes pickled onion taste like "onion marmalade" and that's awful.
The solanide compound might have been destroyed by the pickling process. Why vanilla with the tomatoes?
@@soylentgreenb You probably meant 1:2:3 for sugar:vinegar:water, right?
You may be right about the solanine; a quick googling shows that (some claim that) fermentation breaks down solanine and that solanine in potatoes can be neutralised with vinegar, so the same should apply for green tomatoes. The vanilla was only for taste, as I remembered that my mother had once served green tomatoes pickled with vinegar, sugar and vanilla. I was slightly disappointed in the taste of mine a couple of days after I had made them (which is probably why I forgot about them for so long), but when I "found" them again... wow.
7 years??! In a Shed??! OMG! Here in Atlanta where it gets up to 95-100f *outside* of the shed in the summer, even one year would turn them to green slime.
Homemade pickles (from the garden preferably) are one of those grab-a-fork-and-stand-in-the-fridge type snacks. We made a lot of pickles growing up. Cucumbers and onions go well together in the same pickle.
White onions and half beet juice/vinegar is my go-to, the beets add a hint of earthy flavor that pairs with the bite of the onion, plus they turn a deeper shade of pink to eventually almost purple.
thanks for this tip!
Lol I was thinking about that the whole time. Gotta be the spiced beets right?
EARTHY?...do you peel your beets?
@@aiaioioi they taste earthy tho
You are the perfect food educator. You always answer all the questions, explain the chemistry/science and test the logical things. THANK YOU.
I feel like the pickling craze has really gotten a new drive within the last year. Friends of mine that I never talked to about it have started, I've been making onions and other pickles for about a year and a half now, youtubers are making more and more pickling videos and so on.
I'm all for it!
Thanks for being so comprehensive, I need to try some of these.
I love pickled onions! Maybe the best condiment to ever exist. Also onions are unable to store water inside them because there is always a leek.
*picked onions
How do you eat them ? Never heared of pickled onions. I know pickled cucumbers , but pickled onions ? Do you eat them as they are as a snack ? Or are you just putting them on stuff ?
@@blablup1214 My bad, I eat only picked ones.
@@williamvouk2911 my bad comrade, my bad.
Bah dum tiss! 😂
Adam I regret not discovering you years ago. You make perfect videos. Nothing but the facts. No wasting time. No cussing. No time wasted trying to look cute. Lots of science. You set an amazing standard. I subscribed and can’t wait to watch more of your videos. Thank you for what you do.
I've never actually done this with vinegar before. I've always used lime juice, but I mainly use them for tacos or nachos. I also don't just do onions but serrano chilis with salt. They're really good.
I made pink pickled carrots... But that was because I bought a packet of rainbow carrots and one variety has a pink skin that leeches colour onto the white ones. I did them the traditional canning method as I wanted to preserve them for using in sushi and tacos year round (I did a few flavours). These ones are really good on falafels, and now I want to make some. All my onions I grew were super tiny, so it would work fine for a couple servings.
You could also do fermented carrots (healthier). I did my pathetic tiny carrots we grew last year😂😂 they taste so good and last up to a year afaik.
They are fantastic on almost everything, the thumbnail does NOT lie.
The other day made fridge marinated mushrooms with water, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, and anise seeds. Using the leftover liquid as a soup base made the tastiest soup I ever had.
I appreciate the no BS videos. Summarizing the findings right at the start is very welcome. I'm still going to watch the rest because I love pickled onions and I'm interested, but glad to know there's no better way than I already do it.
"We don't eat these pickles on their own" - speak for yourself!
I wouldn't say I eat them on their own, but I add enough to any dish that you might as well consider them to be the main ingredient
@@holmd90 Yeah you can't really make a meal of them on their own, but that doesn't mean I won't snack on them by themselves.
Congrats for the 2 million subscribers!!
Thanks so much Adam! I literally just bought the ingredients to make pickled onions and planned to make them tonight! I’ll definitely be using this video.
“Don’t cut the onion straight! It’ll get pungent!”
Me, an onion lover: “yes that is the purpose of the onion”
I had the same thought, I want to be hit in the head with a brick by my pickles and onions and pickled onions.
@@dark_wyvern8880 Shut up
yes officer, this post right here
Exactly! When I put onions on a burger, I want to taste and smell some damn onions
@@eXJonSnow for a burger that's what you'd want, yes, but if you cut them straight for pickling (or any use where they'll be sitting for a while), they'll actually lose more pungency compared to cutting them the other way. obviously as adam's shown, for pickling it doesn't matter much in the end, but if you don't cut them straight, you instead will get that pungency when you bite into the onions, instead of it being lost into the air. probably.
Something I didn't see you mention (and I actually learned from a hello fresh recipe), but for a quick pickling solution you can submerge the onions in the acid and microwave it for 30 seconds. Did this with radishes and it worked surprisingly well.
Yeah, definitely not "every way" of making them. I was hoping for the chamber vacuum machine method, but I guess not many people have one. My OH watched as the bowl of onions/vinegar/salt boiled. When the lid popped open she passed me an oven glove. Grinning, I put my finger in to the cold bowl. Physics. Now I'm going to have to compare how boiling with heat and boiling by vacuum affects the texture...
@@georgeprout42 what does "OH" stand for?
@@greenylee1 other half?
@@greenylee1 OppenHeimer
@@thunderbob20 I figured, but I don't remember anyone asking for my input on "OH" being short for "Other Half"...I don't approve. (I'm joking in case it's not clear, lol)
Your note about the Bayless method is spot on. I use the juice of two limes added to a 50% white vinegar/water solution that I do heat, but just enough to dissolve the salt and sugar. I do run the cut onions under hot tap water, but just for a moment.
The way we usually do it around the household is lime juice, oregano and habanero. It works great ! It’s herbaceous, spicy and lemony ! You should try it Adam it’s delicious !
I love the nod (may be unintentional) to Alton Brown's show Good Eats, with that Kosher salt container. My dad is a huge Alton fan, and I grew up watching that show. Great episode, by the way! As usual!
Next do a caramelized onion shootout! I'm fondest of the method using high heat and frequent stirring, and deglazing when the frond is close to burning. It's the fastest method without adjusting pH (which may lead to mushiness) but it is definitely hands-on and most home cooks don't seem to use high heat like cooks do.
This is perfect because for the past month I've been eating these every day, i'm obsessed they make everything taste even better. i've made them with rice vinegar 1:1 with water and a few tbsp sugar, i've also put thinly sliced cucumber and radish in which works great as well. i'm for sure trying only filling them halfway. Pickled onion worship!!
Thank you for doing these. I love seeing "field tests" like this.
But also: this shirt is practically radiating blue.
I just realized that this channel actually gave me a little push towards cooking and this is super cool because I'm not going to starve now (probably).
if you want bright pink ones, add some shreds of red cabbage! that's what I do and it's very pretty, plus the pickled cabbage is actually really good too (although I'm sure you could just use cabbage/beet puree or something too)
Came back to your channel after a hiatus. Your content really got that much entertaining, awesome job Adam.
💙 Added bonus, both the onions AND the vinegar are fantastic for your gut microbiome 🥰
I just realized how much effort you use in using descriptive language when specifically expressing what your opinion is. You avoid vague language. Great video as always! We appreciate the effort!
Hey Adam. These are my favorite topping on the vegetarian nachos my girlfriend orders at a bar we go to, and I’ve been trying to find them in the store FOREVER. You have officially made my day and possibly ruined hers (she hates my onion breath) 😆
I am SO HAPPY you at least mentioned re-using the pickle juice in the video. At home my dad asked me the very same thing!
I of course gave it a try but instead of throwing cucumbers after a batch of red onions, I used even more red onions (since the first batch got eaten rather quickly) and noted a distinct increase in pungency and lack of sweetness in the second batch of pickled red onions!
"Imagine the onion as a globe, with the blossom and root end representing the North and South Poles."
Adam has an interesting way of looking at things sometimes.
It is literally called a "globular cut" in cooking books.
I cannot put across exactly how pleasing the detail in this video is,I love pickled vegetables more than life itself.
Adam: Literally teaches people how to cook.
Lauren: Learned to cook from a box
Tell me you fight with your wife in the kitchen, without saying you fight with your wife in the kitchen.
so funny, we were literally discussing how to pickle onions at work the other day! We normally use the lime method since we mostly sell tacos and other mexican style dishes, and Mexican styled pickle onions are made not just with limes, but key limes which tend to be even more acidic. In our case you WANT the strong lime flavor since many dishes typically also go with a squeeze of lime, but the new chef is convinced we could do vinegar only and have the same results. Definitely going to try a half and half method and see if I like what comes out
1:45 I cut my onions like that while making onion fritters - didn't know the direction would affect how pungent the slices would be. Coincidentally, that pungency is kind of the 'essence' that I want to flavour my fritters - I immediately soak the slices in slightly salted cold water to extract it more into the liquid that I'd add to the batter later...
Boiling vinegar and cut onions. Oh boy, Adam’s kitchen must be smelling SWEEEEET! 😂😂
Love the idea that Lauren learned cooking from Hello Fresh and not her husband's youtube channel.
THIS.
My wife is the *exact* same. Initially, I was the home chef. Then, after she got seriously into Hello Fresh, she started experimenting and now she switches to a new ethnic cuisine every few months. Now she can re-make just about anything she's done from memory. She surpassed my meager culinary skill a few years back; I couldn't be a happier loser. 😋🤤😁
I've been doing my picked onions alongside pickled red cabbage recently. I use them both for the same thing, I like them both, so I figured I might as well just mix them together. Gives an even more vibrant colour, too.
Great experiment! Just missing a little note about the acetic acid concentration in the white vinegar you are using, I'm guessing 4-5% - from an international perspective, the "default" white vinegar you can buy here in Sweden (called ättika) has a 24% acetic acid concentration, which requires some care with the measurements!
This is a very good point and he doesn't mention it at all. At 3:45 it looks like he is using 5% as you suggested. My local has about 5 different types with varying levels.
Yes, this! Confusing vinegar and ättika is a mistake you only make once, that's for sure 😅
Great point. In Hungary we have mostly 10% and 20% concentrations, I use the former in food, and the latter to clean my coffee pot, it removes limescale like a charm :D
This is what I was thinking as well. The stuff that I'd think of as my local version of distilled white vinegar (väkiviinaetikka or spritättika) has 10% acetic acid concentration. It's interesting what sort of things we take as given so that it doesn't really even occur to us that things could be different -- such as the acid concentration in distilled vinegar.
In the US almost all vinegar sold as food grade is 5%. There really is no variety except for cleaning vinegar which is usually 15% to 20%.
Adam, I just really love how you casually add a bit of chemistry and biology. Like it is fun to watch because of the food but it is very satisfying when recogning or relearning theory. You're definetly one of my favorite youtubers
It would be an interesting follow-up experiment to keep making pickled onions with the leftover brine from the previous batch over and over, measuring the ph each time (and tasting each time) to see the difference over time. How many times can the liquid be reused safely?
Yeah, if you're not doing a lactic fermented pickle, you really shouldn't reuse it for very long.
But that's the beauty of lactic fermentation - you can keep it going almost indefinitely.
For that you need a specific % of salt by weight, but it's different depending on what veggie you're using.
Until bacteria start producing unwanted chemicals, so between once and a few weeks' worth
I use left over pickle juice for this, I’ve tried doing multiple runs but it’s too watery/thin by run 3 to work well without adding more vinegar.
@@Dessun if a hot brine process is used you should be able to effectively restart that clock every time you make the pickles since you have an almost sterile brine at the start of every batch, which makes the number of times you can do this effectively limited by the rising pH of the vinegar with every batch.
@@garethbaus5471 you can kill bacteria but some bacteria emits toxic waste(toxins ? idk) that can't be killed with heat and idk if those can accumulate with each batches
How serendipitous! I bought red onions today just so I could make pickled onions. How awesome is that...
Hey Adam, I’ve got an experiment you might find interesting to try. I haven’t seen anyone else so this:
When it comes to cooking with wine, it’d be interesting to just cook wine down alone, by itself. Boil off the alcohol and let it reduce just by itself. Do this for a number of different wines (of varying price points and perceived quality etc) and see how you discern the taste, how strong the flavor is (I.e., how much flavor would it actually impart in recipes?) etc.
You could try this with both white and red wine.
I’m sure you could fit in some sciencey stuff to talk about in there as well which is always a hit on your channel.
just a thought!
PSA: 12:38 remember he really likes acidic food.
0:28 thats why this channel is so great!
No cheap tricks but quality to keep people watching.
Subbed
"Hello Fresh is the first Carbon Neutral meal kit" That gave me the biggest laugh I've had in almost a decade. Thanks for that. Seriously, a good 10 minutes of uncontrolable laughter.
I love how realistic your cooking style is! No need to dirty another spoon, mix it with your knife. No need to put the onions in a fancy bowl you’ll just use once for blanching, just blanch in the final vessel. Cooking shows make me feel pressured to dirty 20 dishes unnecessarily 😭
I the Levant (and other areas surrounding) the second most popular pickles is Pink colored Turnips. The pink is achieved by adding a few slices of red beets or some red beet juice in with the pickle. The most popular pickle is cucumber or snake gourd, You get that EVERYWHERE.
Those are also very good
That sounds delicious
I'm far too lazy to actually get red onions to pickle them, so I stole the beet trick from the pickled turnip recipes and throw in a beet! I find the color you get nicer, and the beet tastes quite nice
@@aragusea I would love to make some snake gourd pickles but it's almost impossible to find in the US, and I have black thumbs (everything I plant dies) so I can't even grow it myself 😞
I can't like this video enough... MORE COOL CONDIMENT VIDEOS! This was awesome. I was able to make a big batch while my computer was spinning to print a large document ... at work (remote).
I love making these, pretty much always have a jar of them in my fridge lol
Thank you Adam 😊 I like the first sample. I wouldn’t blanch them, it would soften them up. I like the crunch.
"It's not like the olden days, where you had to pickle everything that you grew right before the winter, these you can make in small batches, it's fine."
That's still a very useful way of doing things for rural homesteaders. Believe it or not, there are still places in the US where there isn't just a grocery store a couple miles away.
I think maybe he was leaning more towards the fact that people have home refrigeration now, whereas historically (dependent on area) that refrigeration was only seasonally available, and fresh produce would probably have been spoiled before the weather became cold enough for longer storage?
@@SunnyMorningPancakes Yeah, that's true for most people, however, when you have a large enough garden, you still have to do something with it before it goes bad, and it's not all gonna fit in the fridge/freezer. Pickling or canning, and then throwing it up on the shelf or down in a basement, out in the garage, etc., still makes a lot of sense in that case.
It's true that commercial produce is available all year, but everything you grow is something you don't have to buy, something that doesn't have to be shipped halfway around the world to get to you, and home grown produce is still just as seasonal as it has historically ever been.
I mean if you are that far away from a grocery store what are the chances you have an internet connection and are watching this video
@@icedcat4021 Well, I'm not one of them, but I know they're out there.
dont forget about the OG pickling method, lactic acid fermentation! it gives the onions a destinct and very savoury taste, with a lot of umami, and a strong but appetizing sulfurous lovestank.
it's not a quick method, but a lovely little project with addictive results! and supposedly incredibly healthy too.
I accidentally discovered cold-pickled onions when experimenting with making home vinegars. I was wanting to save off all the vinegar, but didn't want to ditch all the onions. Yes, the texture was a bit slimy compared to the fresher version, but the complexity of the flavors was amazing. They also lasted for over a year, FWIW.
Adam Ragusea, Max Miller, And Best Ever Food Review show have been amazing at making me the most curious and entertained by food iv think i have ever been.
About the quality of the vinegar, while I haven't been able to really tell the difference between the cheap and expensive vinegars either, one thing to note is that at least here in my country the cheap ones (labeled only as "vinegar") are a byproduct in oil refinement, while the bit more expensive ones (labeled "spirit vinegar", not sure about the english term) are made with grain. While it's hard to tell the difference in taste, I still kind of feel more relaxed eating the one distilled from grain 😁
Finnish vinegar is generally 10% and his vinegar seems to be 5%. so add water if you want to replicate this recipe
I like to slice my onion lattitudenally sometimes when I cook burgers. But I don't chop it in half first. You get rings that go great on a burger.
"First bisect the onion longitudinally, pole to pole..."
"...and everything equilibrates across the entire mass."
I absolutely _love_ Adam's sesquipedalian vocabulary.
That’s a big word
Hi Adam! Love your channel! When we pickle onions we use a mandolin to slice them real thin, then we add a squirt of real lime juice ( no more than a tablespoon) ans pinch of kosher salt. We seal the container and shake to distribute the lima and salt. Two mins and they are ready for Tacos!
This is vain, but I feel so validated every time Adam considers something I happen to enjoy making to be great. Pickled pink onions are so so good
Perfect timing. I was just trying to decide which way I should try to do these on my own. Couldn’t be more grateful for this video
If you have the time, Id highly recommend making lacto-fermented onions. Slice the onions, put them into a sealable jar, pour some salt water on them, and let them rest in a warm place for a week or so. When they start to bubble, they're done! The most complex and delicious way to make onions, and it holds for forever in the fridge.
My grandma used to make it for the next day when I as a child had breakfast with a tomato (just harvested from the garden) salad or sandwich with freshly baked bread! They are AMAZING!!!
Hi Adam! I suggest trying the lime ones again but with a lot less lime (maybe a couple of limes). You can also try to dice them. That's the way it is generally done in Yucatan with cochinita pibil. What we do is to dice the onion, put it in a bowl with the juice of a couple of limes, some mexican oregano (1 tsp apron.) and a habanero (or half) leave it out of the fridge. We generally do this one to two hours before eating. I think you'll like those.
I was in Romona California and ate at Mananas who had the absolute best pickled red onions I had ever had. Now this video is up and my life is complete.
so in terms of the samples 3 and 4, the difference between full-vinegar and half-vinegar would be that the full vinegar ones ostensibly taste better as a food compliment, such as on the nachos you used as a test bed, but the half-vinegar ones might be a better choice for eating by themselves, perhaps as part of a crudite platter? Crackers and sliced meats and such? Just trying to get a sense of the taste.
I've done half vinegar traditional dill pickles, and I'd agree with that. They're good on their own or in more mild sandwiches, but not quite enough flavour to have in a burger. Still good, and I'm glad I made them (I grew too many cucumbers this year).
I make them with red wine vinegar and it comes out even more pink! I like it, and I do taste the difference between it and distilled vinegar.
The best method I ever tested was to cook the onions in a bit of olive oil with lot of the spice you want and a little bit of sugar, until they are really soft and transparent but with still a little crunch
Boil water+vinegar 55/45 , onion in a clean jar, hot vinegar on top, wait till it's at room temp and then in the fridge for 12h et voila, best picked onion you will ever taste
Thanks a lot for the Verity , I will definitely try all of them. My currently favourite method is, as demonstrated by My Name is Andong channel...more ir less, to submerge sliced onions in a salty and vinegary boiling water solution, covered for around 15 minutes and drain. I keep the excess brine refrigirated and use it as soup base later on, combining with pasta water or broth.
I've actually never made pickled onions. I'm gonna try that though.
Adendum: I am going to the store to get some stuff to make pickled onions.
Every once in a while YT coughs this up on my recommended list and I watch it again. It gets better with age, and no blanching required.
Wow this video is incredible timing! I’ve been thinking a lot about pickled vegetables lately, actually more about fermented ones like the “old school” pickled ones.
I think you may want to look more into the process of fermenting vegetables. I recommend “The Art of Fermentation” by Sandor Katz, who actually contradicts some of what you said about the difficulty of fermentation. The reality is, people have been using fermentation as a very robust form of preservation for maybe 10,000 years… it does not require complex tools and measurements to be safe, nor does it require anything close to sterility. Cleanliness is fine. I think if your willing to smoke your own meat in the back yard you should definitely try some veggie fermentation! Kimchi maybe? I’d love to see it.
I think a lot of why many people are a little intimidated by fermentation is fear of botulism, but what’s funny is botulism is actually not really a threat given the correct pH levels, which can easily be measured by taste, tho pH strips are cheap as well. The community of lactic acid bacteria and yeasts that does the actual fermentation inhibit the growth of mold and other contaminants. In fact, IIRC botulism was not really a recorded food contaminate until the development of canning processes, which produces a sterile environment that will enable the rapid growth of botulism if the spores are not killed during the canning process (by reaching 121 C for a while).
Love the video, pickled onions are the best!!!
Interesting advice from all the comments....
I really appreciate your thorough experiment!!!
My British mother likes British style pickleds, pearl onions in malt vinegar. Goes great with a ploughman's, and so pungent that biting into one flings the smell from the back of your throat to the front of your nose.
The healthiest pickled onions 3/4 apple cider vinegar 1/4 water add a few allspice and pop in fridge for a couple of days also do the same recipe with cooked sliced beetroot, fabulous
Pink Picked Onions! Oops! I hope you mean pickled, haha!
I always use a mix of lime and vinegar. The citrus note is very nice, but yes, pure lime is too strong. I also do a version of this with regular rice vinegar mixed with lime juice. Rice vinegar adds its own distinct, less "industrial" acidity and the lime just brightens the mix up. Salt and sugar (and pepper sometimes) are essential. I also make this with fresh bean sprouts, green onions and / or matchstick cut carrots. Thank you for the test! very interesting result, I will try the blanching method, as I usually do it raw, no heat.
Mexican here. In the mayan peninsula what they do is pickle red onions in sour orange with salt, oregano and habanero pepper. That is called xnipec sauce (pronounced "sh-nee-peck"). The lime juice thing is basically a substitute of the sour orange. Vinager also works. The key is the oregano and the habanero.
That sounds like what I ate in Belize. Lots of food stalls have a jar of mysterious pickle topping and I wasn’t sure what was in it, but it definitely had oregano. Some were a cabbage and red onion blend.
I appreciate the summary at the beginning of the vid.
I really wish I liked pickled onions! On paper they sound like a highly versatile culinary commodity. Also, as you mentioned they seem to be the hottest thing right now with cooking youtubers.
My sister makes them all the time, but I've tried a couple different recipes she made and really did not care for them... Perhaps some modification to the recipe could make them more palatable to me? I don't know. It's kind of a bummer that so many recipes online use them now, but I really just don't like the taste.
Do you know what it is that bothers you? The texture, smell, spiciness, sourness, sweetness, the combination, etc?
You can probably train yourself to like them if you try them with a few different other foods over a period of time. I have heard 8-12 times trying something you don't currently like will change your mind, you just have to decide whether it's worth it! (my partner did this with olives and will now happily buy and eat them. Took several years to get there though, trying different kinds every 6 months or so.)
Don't worry, you don't have to like every food. I myself don't care that much for pickled onions either. To me they taste like mild onions that are sour, which is not that special. But I can understand that some people like them.
@@justforplaylists To me it's just a general funk. I don't care much for pickled cucumbers either, with the exception of kosher dill, which I love. It's the smell and the "sourness" that are the primary offenders of the onions(I love sour, but again it just tastes funky when it comes to the pickled onions)
I know kosher dill pickles are sweeter than regular, but i also hate sweet pickles. Not sure why it's just kosher dill that like. If pickled onions tasted more like kosher dill maybe I'd like them more, but I wouldn't know how that's accomplished. :P
@@41A2E I think Kosher pickles usually have more salt and garlic and are fermented.
I like the shirt Adam! I just drove cross country which took me from Memphis TN to Bristol VA and back again.
hey adam, something that comes to my scientifically drilled mind when i see this video and the kenji story as well is that none of these tests are double blind and i think that could be a fun thing for you to do in in some future videos. just have someone relabel you samples and write down which is which, you'll try them without knowing what it is, write down (or record) what you think and afterwards match them to the sample. i'm very sure that there are many taste tests where confirmation bias is a huge factor.
I had good results adding more salt to my mixes too. Since the salt draws out moisture from the vegetable, it leaves a crunchier product, and works well with cucumbers.