June 9, 2025 • 20 mins
Bread-and-butter pickles. Always in our fridge all summer long. But we don't want to go to the hassle of canning them in huge batches. We don't need to survive the apocalypse with pickles!
This recipe is from our book COLD CANNING, which you can find at this link. We hope you'll make a small batch of this pickles. And no need to copy this recipe down as you listen to this episode. You can find the recipe on our website at this link.
Plus, we've got a one-minute cooking tip about the irritating problem of bits of egg shell in a cracked egg. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week!
Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[00:40] Our one-minute cooking tip: an easy way to get egg shells out of cracked egg.
[03:13] We’re headed to the kitchen to make bread-and-butter pickles, a recipe from our book COLD CANNING. We can make one jar and keep these fantastic pickles in the fridge for up to a month. If you'd like the recipe, check it out on our website at this link.
[17:02] What’s making us happy in food this week? Rhubarb jam and ground pecan brownies!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bruce (00:01):
Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Martin.
Mark (00:04):
And I'm Mark s Scarborough.
And together with Bruce, we havewritten three dozen cookbooks.
We're publishing our 37th cookbookcalled Canning, all about small
batch, no steam, no pressure, canning.
You can make two or three jars of well,what we're about to make in this podcast.
Something that in fact is in our house.
Every single summer, and he isalso in the book Cold Canning.
(00:28):
We'll be talking aboutthat when we get to it.
But before that, we've got a one minutecooking tip and we'll tell you what's
making us happy in food this week.
So let's get started.
Bruce (00:40):
Our one minute cooking tip.
Have you ever cracked an egg andgotten a bit of shell in the bowl?
Yes.
Yes, of course you have.
We all have.
And it's nearly impossible toget it out with your fingers.
You just push that piece of shell around.
It's so ugh.
Unless you wet your finger.
A wet finger goes right through theegg white and that piece of shell
will stick to your wet finger.
Really?
You could slide it up the sideof the bowl and get rid of it.
(01:01):
Really?
Yep.
Really?
I
Mark (01:03):
Okay.
Wait.
I have never.
Tried this and I don't know this.
Yep, yep.
Wet fingers.
You wet your finger and then itgoes right through the egg whites.
Okay?
So this can't be, you're just usingthe egg whites to whip them because
that would be putting water into them.
So you can't do this trick.
If you want those egg whites, that'ssomehow amount of shells gotten in
them and you intend to make miran.
Bruce (01:20):
You also don't want your finger in there 'cause you have oils on your finger.
This is just your cracking eggs intoa bowl because you're gonna, so you're
gonna scramble them or something.
Scramble them or fry them.
But you get a somehow.
But unfortunately you getsome shell in the bowl.
So you want to get the shell out.
Wet.
Your finger goes right down to thebottom and the shell sticks to it.
Huh?
Mark (01:37):
And I, I wanna know, I wanna say how I know you're a chef.
I know you're a chef becauseyou talked about cracking an egg
into a bowl before you fry it.
And I don't think anyone listeningto this podcast does that.
I do it because I married youand I've learned to do it.
But before I fry an egg, I crackit into a bowl, and then I slip
it from the bowl into the skilletbecause I've watched Bruce do it.
But before I ever was withBruce, I never did such a thing.
(01:59):
I cracked it right into theskillet, which means I broke.
The yolk
Bruce (02:02):
and what happens if you get the shell in the skillet?
I don't know.
You just eat it.
Come on.
That's gross.
That's like sand in your salad.
Gross.
I don't know.
You just eat it.
Okay.
Mark (02:11):
Before we get to making a recipe, we're heading to the kitchen in this
episode to make a recipe for somethingthat makes me very, very happy and that
I demand demand outta Bruce every summer.
Me say that it would be great if you couldrate this podcast, if you could subscribe
to it, if you could write a review.
All those ways are, are the ways thatyou can help us maintain the podcast
(02:31):
in a very crowded podcast landscape.
We appreciate that.
We don't wanna accept any advertising,so the way you can help us avoid all
of that is by getting us a star rating.
Thank you.
And by writing a review even.
Nice.
Podcast does wonders for the algorithms.
Thank you so much for that.
I can't believe I live in aworld in which I use the word
(02:53):
algorithm loosely in a sentence.
Like it's something, I mean, remember
Bruce (02:57):
in high school they told you you would use this in adult.
I know, and
Mark (03:00):
I assure you that when I took the point of going, I got to the
point in math where we did algorithms.
I thought no one is ever, ever,ever using this unless there's.
Some nerdy engineer, and now infact, it dominates all our lives.
Oh, well, there you go.
There you go.
Okay, so now we're on to the cookingsegment of this podcast and we are making
Get Ready bread and Butter pickles.
Bruce (03:24):
This is a recipe for bread and butter pickles that Mark and I
first created for a cooking lightarticle on pickling over years ago.
Remember, magazines.
Hmm.
I remember, remember
Mark (03:34):
writing for gourmet?
Bruce (03:35):
Yeah.
Mark (03:36):
Bon Appetit.
Remember this stuff and writingso much for fine cooking.
Remember that?
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
God, I, I, okay.
Here's a little bit of trivia about us.
We could never crack food and wine.
Bruce (03:48):
No we couldn't.
No we could
Mark (03:50):
not.
Bruce (03:50):
Now, Tina u Lockey was the food editor and I don't know what she had
against us, but she never, I don'tknow she had anything against us.
Mark (03:56):
Oh, come on.
It's not against you.
It's just we never cracked it.
We never got the rightarticle idea to her.
At the right second,we got Wine Spectator.
I know.
We became
Bruce (04:06):
their travel correspondent in France.
Mark (04:07):
In Day Wine Spectator was considered the roughest of the rough
crack 'cause it was such an old boys club.
Mm-hmm.
Together.
And we cracked.
That and became, as Bruce says,a travel writing pair for Wine
Spectator about, uh, food and wine.
I don't know, it just escaped us.
We couldn't make it happen.
Mm-hmm.
No matter how hard we tried, butwe were contributing editors to
(04:29):
cooking light and to eating well.
We were columnists longest servingcolumnists on weight watchers.com.
Oh my gosh.
Those were the days.
Okay.
Oh, email off to bread and butterbecause, so bread and butter.
So let's talk about what's happened.
Before we started recording this,
Bruce (04:41):
okay, before we recorded this, I took one pound or 450 grams of pickling
Kirbys, those small pickling cucumbers,and I sliced them into half inch rings,
circles, you know, even sized discs.
And I put them in a big bowl with onetablespoon or 12 grams of kosher salt.
I let, that's pretty
Mark (05:01):
thick.
Yep.
Let me just say.
Half an inch is not a paper thin slice.
No.
You
Bruce (05:06):
want these to have some bite and body, so that's,
Mark (05:08):
that's a little bit, uh, smaller than a centimeter, but
you're getting near a centimeter.
Yeah.
It's not a, it's a littlesmaller than a centimeter.
Bruce (05:18):
You want you chunky pieces.
Also, they've been sitting now withthe salt in a large bowl for an
hour and a half, and they've got.
A lot of liquid in this bowl.
So they've shrunk a bit, they'vegiven off liquid, and what I'm
doing now is I am draining thesein a large colander and I am going
to rinse them really, really well.
Mark (05:36):
Okay.
So while he's rinsing those saltedKirbys, which we've done to get rid
of that excess liquid, as he says,because that will make our brine.
Boggy as these cucumber bits sit in it.
Mm-hmm.
I'm gonna slice up ayellow onion and listen.
It depends on how much onion you like.
I've got a medium one here.
(05:57):
You can use a large yellow onion.
You can use a small one.
The onion just adds a little sweetaromatic flavor behind the pickles.
It's not the main point here.
It depends on how much you like onion.
A medium onion is great.
I've peeled it, I've taken off thestem and, and I'm gonna really, really.
Thinly slice it.
I want this thing to be prettythin, about as thin as those
(06:20):
cucumber slices, even thinner.
Yep.
I, I like it with thin slices.
I would advise you to slice the onionin half and then lay the cut size down
and start making your thin slices along.
It's easier than a roundy rollie thing.
Bruce (06:35):
Okay.
No, do not try and cut pinslices that have a roundy rollie.
Anything?
No, never.
Okay, so we've got this.
We can make a B right now.
We need a brine because allpickles have a brine, and
Mark (06:43):
before you say what's gonna go in the brine, it's
gonna go into Medium suspect.
Let say that this recipe'savailable on our website
cooking with Bruce and mark.com
or Bruce and mark.com.
It is a recipe from Cold Canning,but it's also available there.
You can find it under this podcastepisode, or there's a list of recipes
on our website, and you can find itright there amongst all the recipes
for these bread and butter pickle,as well as a gorgeous photographs.
(07:06):
Straight out of the book forbread and butter pickles.
Okay.
Okay.
Go on.
Three
Bruce (07:11):
quarters of a cup or 180 milliliters of plain
white distilled vinegar.
That's just no white wine vinegar.
Mark (07:17):
That's just plain old white.
Yep.
Bad vinegar.
Bruce (07:20):
Three quarters of a cup or 150 grams of white sugar.
Plain old granulated white sugar.
Mark (07:26):
Can I stop you and talk about white vinegar for a minute?
Sure.
Because I'm so obsessed with this.
So for.
All of my life.
All of your life, all of anyone's life.
White vinegar was 5%.
Acidity.
5%, 5%, 5%.
In the last two years, manufacturers havedropped the percent and distill white
vinegar is now often sold at 4% acidity,which is no good for shelf stable canning.
(07:54):
It's a whole.
Huge problem.
It's fine by us because we'regonna put these in the fridge.
Mm-hmm.
But you should just know that4% acidic distilled white
vinegar is less sour than 5%.
And you might wanna search out5% for the exact right flavor.
(08:15):
Okay.
So you've got, in terms of volume,the same amount of white, still
white vinegar and white sugar, butdifferent weights, a hundred and.
Well not wait.
It's 180 milliliters of distill whitevinegar and 150 grams of, uh, castor
sugar, ly white sugar, stuff like that.
Bruce (08:30):
Yep.
And one quarter cup of 60milliliters of apple cider vinegar,
which usually is at 5% acidity.
We have three tablespoonswith 39 grams of.
Dark brown sugar.
Yep.
Same three tablespoons, but 30grams of brown mustard seeds.
Mark (08:46):
And you probably notice if you listen to our podcast about brown, are
much hotter than yellow mustard seeds.
Mm-hmm.
So these are gonna take the topof your head off if you don't want
the top of your head taken off.
And trust me, there's not a lot here.
If you don't, you can drop.
The amount slightly here, even downto two tablespoons or 20 grams.
But we like it a little bit spicier.
Bruce (09:05):
And we got one teaspoon, which is about 10 grams of yellow mustard seeds.
Yeah.
The less spicy variety.
Mm-hmm.
A quarter teaspoon of celery seedsand just an eighth of a teaspoon
of ground cloves and an eighthof a teaspoon of ground turmeric.
These are all going into a mediumsauce pan over a high heat.
Right.
And I'm stirring until it dissolves.
And we are gonna bring these.
(09:25):
Just to the barest simmer.
Mark (09:27):
Now here's, here's, here's the problem, and this is a
shortcut cheap thing as we've usedground clubs and ground turmeric,
and will it cloud the brine?
Yes.
Slightly, it will slightly cloudthe brine, and old school canners
will freak out because we can puta whole clove in there, et cetera,
Bruce (09:42):
or fresh turmeric,
Mark (09:43):
right?
We're doing this for the easeof the process and it makes it
so much easier to use groundcloves and ground turmeric, and.
Also, we're making a small batch, sowe should be as easy as we can be.
So bruises, put this onthe stove in this medium.
So pan, he stirred ituntil that sugar dissolves.
It dissolves pretty quickly.
Yep.
And if you've got it at mediumhigh heat to high heat, it's gonna
(10:04):
come up to a boil pretty fast.
You just wanna stir itevery once in a while.
Yep.
To make sure that none of thesugar is falling on a solution.
Bruce (10:10):
Yep.
So the thing is, why do they callthese bread and butter pickles?
I mean, that's always the phraseused for pickles that are sweet.
And vinegar.
Are you kidding?
But why are they calledbread and butter pickles?
You really don't know.
I have.
Are you being serious with me?
You don't know.
Oh my God.
I'm being serious with you.
Okay,
Mark (10:25):
well please let the southerner teach you something.
There you go.
You eat them on a slice of buttered bread.
You,
Bruce (10:32):
I thought I ate it.
I thought I ate it on a pieceof smoked brisket or something.
No.
Well,
Mark (10:37):
you can.
They're delicious On smoked.
They also good.
Sandwich, of course, they're deliciouson all those things, but many of us
grew up eating buttered sandwiches, andthat means lunch and meat on bread with
butter, not mayonnaise and not mustard.
I know it's so not the modern world.
And these were the pickles that you put inthat sandwich with the butter on the red.
(11:02):
Or if you were like my farmgrandmother, you literally buttered a
slice of bread and put these picklesand some of the onions on top of
that butter and ate it as a snack.
Mm-hmm.
Yum.
So there you go, bread and butter pickles.
Bruce (11:17):
Now bread and butter pickles are only good when they're crunchy and fresh.
Made bread and butter pickles likethese, which don't get processed,
which get put in your fridge.
Stay crunchy.
What I don't understand are allthose shelf stable jars of bread and
butter, pickles at the supermarket.
Mushy.
That are mushy.
Yeah, mushy.
Who wants mushy pickles?
(11:37):
Well,
Mark (11:37):
we're doing a pinch, but they're not, no, they won't as good.
I don't understand, and I wanna say that.
Uh, this, once we get this all done andit's, it's about up to a boil, but once we
get this thing up to a boil and Bruce doeswhat he's gonna do next, um, this stuff
will keep in the fridge for about a month.
Honestly, we keep it all summerlong, but let's go by, use D
(11:57):
standards, which is a month.
It'll keep in the, in the freezerindefinitely, but it will.
Get mushy out of the freezerbecause the thawing process mm-hmm.
Will cause the cucumbers to break down.
Bruce (12:09):
It's the same thing that happens if you were to process them.
Right?
So this is best just in the fridge.
Okay.
So I had those rinsed cucumbers with theonions, and I'm putting those into a one.
Quat ball canning drawer, aregular old canning drawer,
which has not been sterilized.
It has not been boiled.
It has been cleanly washed in hotwater, so it is nice and clean,
(12:30):
and those cucumbers went in thereand now I'm taking the brine off
the stove and I am pouring it.
Over the cucumbers.
Mark (12:39):
You can, there are canning funnels you can use that are wide
mouth that you can sit insidethe jar and just pour through.
But if you have a steady hand, youcan get this right into the jar.
Let me advise you to set the jar with thecucumbers and the in the sink so that.
If you do spill any of this, it ends upin the sink and you can just easily clean
(13:01):
it up rather than all over your counter.
Mm-hmm.
Or your floor.
And by the way, you're workingwith a super hot solution
here of sugar and vinegar.
You probably wanna put childrenand as we call them, furry,
well wishers out of the kitchen.
Sure.
Uh, because you can'ttrip and then it's bad.
Bruce (13:18):
You know what this reminds me of when I eat these kind of pickles,
it reminds me of when we go to Korean.
Fried chicken places.
Yes.
And I get the chicken moo.
Yes.
The sweet pickled radish.
Mark (13:28):
Not everybody's gonna know what chicken mo is.
So
Bruce (13:29):
moo is the Korean word for radish and chicken Moo is the pickled
radish you serve with fried chicken.
And it's a sweet and vinegary pickledradish and called chicken moo.
And that's sort of like Korean bread and
Mark (13:42):
butter pickles sort of, except this has all the mustard seeds.
Mm-hmm.
And this is much.
No offense to Korean cuisine, butthis is much more sophisticated.
It is.
It's, it's got a wild aromato it and an herbal flavor.
It's more complex flavor.
I love bread and butter pickles.
I can't imagine a summer without them.
(14:03):
So why would I make these?
Well, Bruce has got this thing here.
As we say, we're gonna setit out on the counter for an.
Then we're gonna cover it.
We're gonna refrigerate it.
You can cover it and freeze it.
After an hour, the pi, the cucumbers,the pickles will get mushy on the thaw.
They will not taste right for24 to 48 hours afterwards.
(14:24):
So you need to let this kind of set.
Yeah, for a couple days.
It needs to cure as it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
These need
Bruce (14:30):
to come and ripen and become beautiful and at which point
you compile them on sandwiches.
Mark (14:35):
Pile them on burgers.
I love them on hummus.
I love to buy hummus from the storeand spoon up some of these with
the brine on top of the hummus.
Bruce (14:44):
Mm.
I love them on a salami sandwich.
That was, that
Mark (14:47):
was something like, they're great on a salami sandwich.
Mm-hmm.
They're great on burgers,they're great on dogs.
They're great with brats.
They're of course great with.
Anything from a barbecue, whetheryou make it yourself or buy it from
a barbecue restaurant, brisket,pulled pork, ribs, all those
things, they're perfect with them.
Um, let me also say, this is weird, butif you put them with sour cream on a
(15:09):
baked potato, they are pretty Oh, sure.
Why not?
Fine.
On sour cream, on a baked potato.
Chop
Bruce (15:13):
them up.
Put them in
Mark (15:14):
chicken salad.
Yep.
Put them in egg salad.
Bruce (15:17):
Yep.
Oh my God.
There's so much you could do
Mark (15:18):
with this.
There is so much you can do with this, andin fact, the brine that this is in, if you
stick a tablespoon in it and don't pick upany of the spices, but just use the brine.
You can add a tiny bit ofthis brine to dressings.
You can use it as a marinade.
Mm-hmm.
When you're finally done with this whole.
Big jar of bread and butter pickles.
(15:39):
Then strain it so that you get out allof those extraneous bits of cucumber
and all the spices and all that, andthen pour it back into the jar and
literally, I'm serious, shove a coupleboneless skinless chicken breasts in
there for about an hour in the fridge.
It's a great.
Brine for those boneless,skinless chicken.
Then you
Bruce (15:57):
grill them and they're sweet again.
They can't sit in
Mark (15:59):
this brine more than an hour or two, or they'll get mushy, but uh, an
hour right in the fridge, they're perfect.
Also works
Bruce (16:05):
with center cut boneless pork chops.
Yep, they're great.
That's a great idea to usethis sugary brine syrup.
Mark (16:12):
Yep.
Again, let me just say that thisrecipes on our website is of
course in the book called Canning.
We hope that you'll takea look at that book.
It's up on Amazon or at retailersacross the country, or if
you want to avoid Amazon at.
Bookshop, which is the independent,uh, books sellers website.
You can find the book all over the place.
It's coming out at the end of July.
Uh, it's got, oh mygosh, how many recipes?
(16:33):
Four, four hundred and twenty
Bruce (16:34):
five.
Recipes,
Mark (16:35):
4 25 like this.
That makes small batches of thingsthat you need and you're alive that
Bruce (16:40):
you can do in real time without a lot of work and no
big pots of boiling water.
Oh my gosh.
And no processing blackberry
Mark (16:48):
conserve.
Is worth the admission to the book.
Mm-hmm.
But that's a for another matter.
Okay.
So that's our makingbread and butter pickles.
We appreciate your being a part of thisjourney with us and cooking along with us
in your car or wherever you are right now.
Um, and we're gonna get up, do whatwe usually do at the end, which
is what's making us happy in food.
This week.
(17:11):
I will start.
Okay.
So one of the things that'smaking me happy is it's that
time of year in New England when.
Rhubarb B in.
Mm-hmm.
And Bruce has made Rhubarb jamand he did not make the recipe
from our book, cold Canning.
There is a small batch, nocanning recipe from Rhubarb Jam.
I made a big batch in the book, but hemade the whole thing and he canned it.
(17:33):
Mm-hmm.
Bruce (17:33):
I did.
So they were in the pantry and they willstay there until we opened them all and
eat them all, or give them to people.
You know, the trick whenyou make rhubarb Jam is a.
Tiny, tiny little bit of vanilla.
It is because vanilla justbalances with rhubarb so Well.
It's the, but you can
Mark (17:47):
overpower it.
It's the trick of, uh, rhubarb pie.
Mm.
Not strawberry rhubarbpie, but rhubarb pie.
Uh, just, I mean, uh, like a halfa teaspoon of vanilla, it balances
out the rhubarb beautifully, and yetpreserves all that fabulous sour flavor.
Bruce (18:01):
Mm-hmm.
Mm mm mm What's making me happy infood this week are pecan brownies.
Mark (18:08):
Oh, right.
Oh gosh.
I made a batch
Bruce (18:09):
of gluten-free pecan brownies to bring to my knitting workshop.
So say what you did.
'cause it's fascinating.
So I taught a knitting workshop,um, at a local library, and
Mark (18:19):
I don't know that, that's so fascinating.
I
Bruce (18:20):
met
Mark (18:21):
the recipe, but come on.
Yeah.
So I
Bruce (18:22):
ground up a cup of.
Pecans and I then into the foodprocess where I ground them.
I put some salt and I put, I putsome salt and I put cocoa powder
and I let that all just go together.
And then I beat eggs and sugar and I usedduck eggs 'cause we have all these local
farms in us and I beat duck eggs andsugar until it was big and fluffy and.
(18:45):
Thick and white and I mixedin the chocolate nut mixture.
And then I folded in some measurefor measure flour alternative, the
gluten-free flour alternative from KingArthur flour and a little baking powder.
Mark (18:59):
They were super, I had a sneak bite before you took
them to the knitting group.
And they were super fudgy.
Mm-hmm.
Very collapsed.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, with a crunchy, crackly top.
And so nutty it was.
All those lovely pecans in there.
Round pecans.
We are lucky enough that wehave a friend from Texas who
sends us a gallon jug of mm-hmm.
(19:20):
Pecan halves, of course, from Texas,and they sit in our freezer unless
they go bad, but they sit in ourfreezer until Bruce uses them all
up, which I think you did them all.
I used them all
Bruce (19:30):
up.
That was all
Mark (19:31):
used up in those brownies.
I think they're all gone now.
The ladies at the workshop loved them.
They, oh man.
I grew up with fresh pecansfrom my grandparents on
their farm, and I love pecan.
Anything is enough for me.
Okay, so that's the podcast for this week.
We appreciate your.
Being with us.
We appreciate your being on this journeyand choosing us out of the vast array
of podcasts out there that we know thereis a billion podcasts out there and
(19:54):
we appreciate your being here with us.
Bruce (19:56):
And every week here we tell you what's making us happy in food.
So please go to our Facebookgroup, also called Cooking with
Bruce and Mark, and tell us what'smaking you happy in food this week.
'cause we are interested in whatis happening in your kitchen.
What's happening on your plateand what you're eating and loving,
and if it's really good, we mighteven try it and talk about it here
on cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Martin.
Mark (00:04):
And I'm Mark s Scarborough.
And together with Bruce, we havewritten three dozen cookbooks.
We're publishing our 37th cookbookcalled Canning, all about small
batch, no steam, no pressure, canning.
You can make two or three jars of well,what we're about to make in this podcast.
Something that in fact is in our house.
Every single summer, and he isalso in the book Cold Canning.
(00:28):
We'll be talking aboutthat when we get to it.
But before that, we've got a one minutecooking tip and we'll tell you what's
making us happy in food this week.
So let's get started.
Bruce (00:40):
Our one minute cooking tip.
Have you ever cracked an egg andgotten a bit of shell in the bowl?
Yes.
Yes, of course you have.
We all have.
And it's nearly impossible toget it out with your fingers.
You just push that piece of shell around.
It's so ugh.
Unless you wet your finger.
A wet finger goes right through theegg white and that piece of shell
will stick to your wet finger.
Really?
You could slide it up the sideof the bowl and get rid of it.
(01:01):
Really?
Yep.
Really?
I
Mark (01:03):
Okay.
Wait.
I have never.
Tried this and I don't know this.
Yep, yep.
Wet fingers.
You wet your finger and then itgoes right through the egg whites.
Okay?
So this can't be, you're just usingthe egg whites to whip them because
that would be putting water into them.
So you can't do this trick.
If you want those egg whites, that'ssomehow amount of shells gotten in
them and you intend to make miran.
Bruce (01:20):
You also don't want your finger in there 'cause you have oils on your finger.
This is just your cracking eggs intoa bowl because you're gonna, so you're
gonna scramble them or something.
Scramble them or fry them.
But you get a somehow.
But unfortunately you getsome shell in the bowl.
So you want to get the shell out.
Wet.
Your finger goes right down to thebottom and the shell sticks to it.
Huh?
Mark (01:37):
And I, I wanna know, I wanna say how I know you're a chef.
I know you're a chef becauseyou talked about cracking an egg
into a bowl before you fry it.
And I don't think anyone listeningto this podcast does that.
I do it because I married youand I've learned to do it.
But before I fry an egg, I crackit into a bowl, and then I slip
it from the bowl into the skilletbecause I've watched Bruce do it.
But before I ever was withBruce, I never did such a thing.
(01:59):
I cracked it right into theskillet, which means I broke.
The yolk
Bruce (02:02):
and what happens if you get the shell in the skillet?
I don't know.
You just eat it.
Come on.
That's gross.
That's like sand in your salad.
Gross.
I don't know.
You just eat it.
Okay.
Mark (02:11):
Before we get to making a recipe, we're heading to the kitchen in this
episode to make a recipe for somethingthat makes me very, very happy and that
I demand demand outta Bruce every summer.
Me say that it would be great if you couldrate this podcast, if you could subscribe
to it, if you could write a review.
All those ways are, are the ways thatyou can help us maintain the podcast
(02:31):
in a very crowded podcast landscape.
We appreciate that.
We don't wanna accept any advertising,so the way you can help us avoid all
of that is by getting us a star rating.
Thank you.
And by writing a review even.
Nice.
Podcast does wonders for the algorithms.
Thank you so much for that.
I can't believe I live in aworld in which I use the word
(02:53):
algorithm loosely in a sentence.
Like it's something, I mean, remember
Bruce (02:57):
in high school they told you you would use this in adult.
I know, and
Mark (03:00):
I assure you that when I took the point of going, I got to the
point in math where we did algorithms.
I thought no one is ever, ever,ever using this unless there's.
Some nerdy engineer, and now infact, it dominates all our lives.
Oh, well, there you go.
There you go.
Okay, so now we're on to the cookingsegment of this podcast and we are making
Get Ready bread and Butter pickles.
Bruce (03:24):
This is a recipe for bread and butter pickles that Mark and I
first created for a cooking lightarticle on pickling over years ago.
Remember, magazines.
Hmm.
I remember, remember
Mark (03:34):
writing for gourmet?
Bruce (03:35):
Yeah.
Mark (03:36):
Bon Appetit.
Remember this stuff and writingso much for fine cooking.
Remember that?
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
God, I, I, okay.
Here's a little bit of trivia about us.
We could never crack food and wine.
Bruce (03:48):
No we couldn't.
No we could
Mark (03:50):
not.
Bruce (03:50):
Now, Tina u Lockey was the food editor and I don't know what she had
against us, but she never, I don'tknow she had anything against us.
Mark (03:56):
Oh, come on.
It's not against you.
It's just we never cracked it.
We never got the rightarticle idea to her.
At the right second,we got Wine Spectator.
I know.
We became
Bruce (04:06):
their travel correspondent in France.
Mark (04:07):
In Day Wine Spectator was considered the roughest of the rough
crack 'cause it was such an old boys club.
Mm-hmm.
Together.
And we cracked.
That and became, as Bruce says,a travel writing pair for Wine
Spectator about, uh, food and wine.
I don't know, it just escaped us.
We couldn't make it happen.
Mm-hmm.
No matter how hard we tried, butwe were contributing editors to
(04:29):
cooking light and to eating well.
We were columnists longest servingcolumnists on weight watchers.com.
Oh my gosh.
Those were the days.
Okay.
Oh, email off to bread and butterbecause, so bread and butter.
So let's talk about what's happened.
Before we started recording this,
Bruce (04:41):
okay, before we recorded this, I took one pound or 450 grams of pickling
Kirbys, those small pickling cucumbers,and I sliced them into half inch rings,
circles, you know, even sized discs.
And I put them in a big bowl with onetablespoon or 12 grams of kosher salt.
I let, that's pretty
Mark (05:01):
thick.
Yep.
Let me just say.
Half an inch is not a paper thin slice.
No.
You
Bruce (05:06):
want these to have some bite and body, so that's,
Mark (05:08):
that's a little bit, uh, smaller than a centimeter, but
you're getting near a centimeter.
Yeah.
It's not a, it's a littlesmaller than a centimeter.
Bruce (05:18):
You want you chunky pieces.
Also, they've been sitting now withthe salt in a large bowl for an
hour and a half, and they've got.
A lot of liquid in this bowl.
So they've shrunk a bit, they'vegiven off liquid, and what I'm
doing now is I am draining thesein a large colander and I am going
to rinse them really, really well.
Mark (05:36):
Okay.
So while he's rinsing those saltedKirbys, which we've done to get rid
of that excess liquid, as he says,because that will make our brine.
Boggy as these cucumber bits sit in it.
Mm-hmm.
I'm gonna slice up ayellow onion and listen.
It depends on how much onion you like.
I've got a medium one here.
(05:57):
You can use a large yellow onion.
You can use a small one.
The onion just adds a little sweetaromatic flavor behind the pickles.
It's not the main point here.
It depends on how much you like onion.
A medium onion is great.
I've peeled it, I've taken off thestem and, and I'm gonna really, really.
Thinly slice it.
I want this thing to be prettythin, about as thin as those
(06:20):
cucumber slices, even thinner.
Yep.
I, I like it with thin slices.
I would advise you to slice the onionin half and then lay the cut size down
and start making your thin slices along.
It's easier than a roundy rollie thing.
Bruce (06:35):
Okay.
No, do not try and cut pinslices that have a roundy rollie.
Anything?
No, never.
Okay, so we've got this.
We can make a B right now.
We need a brine because allpickles have a brine, and
Mark (06:43):
before you say what's gonna go in the brine, it's
gonna go into Medium suspect.
Let say that this recipe'savailable on our website
cooking with Bruce and mark.com
or Bruce and mark.com.
It is a recipe from Cold Canning,but it's also available there.
You can find it under this podcastepisode, or there's a list of recipes
on our website, and you can find itright there amongst all the recipes
for these bread and butter pickle,as well as a gorgeous photographs.
(07:06):
Straight out of the book forbread and butter pickles.
Okay.
Okay.
Go on.
Three
Bruce (07:11):
quarters of a cup or 180 milliliters of plain
white distilled vinegar.
That's just no white wine vinegar.
Mark (07:17):
That's just plain old white.
Yep.
Bad vinegar.
Bruce (07:20):
Three quarters of a cup or 150 grams of white sugar.
Plain old granulated white sugar.
Mark (07:26):
Can I stop you and talk about white vinegar for a minute?
Sure.
Because I'm so obsessed with this.
So for.
All of my life.
All of your life, all of anyone's life.
White vinegar was 5%.
Acidity.
5%, 5%, 5%.
In the last two years, manufacturers havedropped the percent and distill white
vinegar is now often sold at 4% acidity,which is no good for shelf stable canning.
(07:54):
It's a whole.
Huge problem.
It's fine by us because we'regonna put these in the fridge.
Mm-hmm.
But you should just know that4% acidic distilled white
vinegar is less sour than 5%.
And you might wanna search out5% for the exact right flavor.
(08:15):
Okay.
So you've got, in terms of volume,the same amount of white, still
white vinegar and white sugar, butdifferent weights, a hundred and.
Well not wait.
It's 180 milliliters of distill whitevinegar and 150 grams of, uh, castor
sugar, ly white sugar, stuff like that.
Bruce (08:30):
Yep.
And one quarter cup of 60milliliters of apple cider vinegar,
which usually is at 5% acidity.
We have three tablespoonswith 39 grams of.
Dark brown sugar.
Yep.
Same three tablespoons, but 30grams of brown mustard seeds.
Mark (08:46):
And you probably notice if you listen to our podcast about brown, are
much hotter than yellow mustard seeds.
Mm-hmm.
So these are gonna take the topof your head off if you don't want
the top of your head taken off.
And trust me, there's not a lot here.
If you don't, you can drop.
The amount slightly here, even downto two tablespoons or 20 grams.
But we like it a little bit spicier.
Bruce (09:05):
And we got one teaspoon, which is about 10 grams of yellow mustard seeds.
Yeah.
The less spicy variety.
Mm-hmm.
A quarter teaspoon of celery seedsand just an eighth of a teaspoon
of ground cloves and an eighthof a teaspoon of ground turmeric.
These are all going into a mediumsauce pan over a high heat.
Right.
And I'm stirring until it dissolves.
And we are gonna bring these.
(09:25):
Just to the barest simmer.
Mark (09:27):
Now here's, here's, here's the problem, and this is a
shortcut cheap thing as we've usedground clubs and ground turmeric,
and will it cloud the brine?
Yes.
Slightly, it will slightly cloudthe brine, and old school canners
will freak out because we can puta whole clove in there, et cetera,
Bruce (09:42):
or fresh turmeric,
Mark (09:43):
right?
We're doing this for the easeof the process and it makes it
so much easier to use groundcloves and ground turmeric, and.
Also, we're making a small batch, sowe should be as easy as we can be.
So bruises, put this onthe stove in this medium.
So pan, he stirred ituntil that sugar dissolves.
It dissolves pretty quickly.
Yep.
And if you've got it at mediumhigh heat to high heat, it's gonna
(10:04):
come up to a boil pretty fast.
You just wanna stir itevery once in a while.
Yep.
To make sure that none of thesugar is falling on a solution.
Bruce (10:10):
Yep.
So the thing is, why do they callthese bread and butter pickles?
I mean, that's always the phraseused for pickles that are sweet.
And vinegar.
Are you kidding?
But why are they calledbread and butter pickles?
You really don't know.
I have.
Are you being serious with me?
You don't know.
Oh my God.
I'm being serious with you.
Okay,
Mark (10:25):
well please let the southerner teach you something.
There you go.
You eat them on a slice of buttered bread.
You,
Bruce (10:32):
I thought I ate it.
I thought I ate it on a pieceof smoked brisket or something.
No.
Well,
Mark (10:37):
you can.
They're delicious On smoked.
They also good.
Sandwich, of course, they're deliciouson all those things, but many of us
grew up eating buttered sandwiches, andthat means lunch and meat on bread with
butter, not mayonnaise and not mustard.
I know it's so not the modern world.
And these were the pickles that you put inthat sandwich with the butter on the red.
(11:02):
Or if you were like my farmgrandmother, you literally buttered a
slice of bread and put these picklesand some of the onions on top of
that butter and ate it as a snack.
Mm-hmm.
Yum.
So there you go, bread and butter pickles.
Bruce (11:17):
Now bread and butter pickles are only good when they're crunchy and fresh.
Made bread and butter pickles likethese, which don't get processed,
which get put in your fridge.
Stay crunchy.
What I don't understand are allthose shelf stable jars of bread and
butter, pickles at the supermarket.
Mushy.
That are mushy.
Yeah, mushy.
Who wants mushy pickles?
(11:37):
Well,
Mark (11:37):
we're doing a pinch, but they're not, no, they won't as good.
I don't understand, and I wanna say that.
Uh, this, once we get this all done andit's, it's about up to a boil, but once we
get this thing up to a boil and Bruce doeswhat he's gonna do next, um, this stuff
will keep in the fridge for about a month.
Honestly, we keep it all summerlong, but let's go by, use D
(11:57):
standards, which is a month.
It'll keep in the, in the freezerindefinitely, but it will.
Get mushy out of the freezerbecause the thawing process mm-hmm.
Will cause the cucumbers to break down.
Bruce (12:09):
It's the same thing that happens if you were to process them.
Right?
So this is best just in the fridge.
Okay.
So I had those rinsed cucumbers with theonions, and I'm putting those into a one.
Quat ball canning drawer, aregular old canning drawer,
which has not been sterilized.
It has not been boiled.
It has been cleanly washed in hotwater, so it is nice and clean,
(12:30):
and those cucumbers went in thereand now I'm taking the brine off
the stove and I am pouring it.
Over the cucumbers.
Mark (12:39):
You can, there are canning funnels you can use that are wide
mouth that you can sit insidethe jar and just pour through.
But if you have a steady hand, youcan get this right into the jar.
Let me advise you to set the jar with thecucumbers and the in the sink so that.
If you do spill any of this, it ends upin the sink and you can just easily clean
(13:01):
it up rather than all over your counter.
Mm-hmm.
Or your floor.
And by the way, you're workingwith a super hot solution
here of sugar and vinegar.
You probably wanna put childrenand as we call them, furry,
well wishers out of the kitchen.
Sure.
Uh, because you can'ttrip and then it's bad.
Bruce (13:18):
You know what this reminds me of when I eat these kind of pickles,
it reminds me of when we go to Korean.
Fried chicken places.
Yes.
And I get the chicken moo.
Yes.
The sweet pickled radish.
Mark (13:28):
Not everybody's gonna know what chicken mo is.
So
Bruce (13:29):
moo is the Korean word for radish and chicken Moo is the pickled
radish you serve with fried chicken.
And it's a sweet and vinegary pickledradish and called chicken moo.
And that's sort of like Korean bread and
Mark (13:42):
butter pickles sort of, except this has all the mustard seeds.
Mm-hmm.
And this is much.
No offense to Korean cuisine, butthis is much more sophisticated.
It is.
It's, it's got a wild aromato it and an herbal flavor.
It's more complex flavor.
I love bread and butter pickles.
I can't imagine a summer without them.
(14:03):
So why would I make these?
Well, Bruce has got this thing here.
As we say, we're gonna setit out on the counter for an.
Then we're gonna cover it.
We're gonna refrigerate it.
You can cover it and freeze it.
After an hour, the pi, the cucumbers,the pickles will get mushy on the thaw.
They will not taste right for24 to 48 hours afterwards.
(14:24):
So you need to let this kind of set.
Yeah, for a couple days.
It needs to cure as it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
These need
Bruce (14:30):
to come and ripen and become beautiful and at which point
you compile them on sandwiches.
Mark (14:35):
Pile them on burgers.
I love them on hummus.
I love to buy hummus from the storeand spoon up some of these with
the brine on top of the hummus.
Bruce (14:44):
Mm.
I love them on a salami sandwich.
That was, that
Mark (14:47):
was something like, they're great on a salami sandwich.
Mm-hmm.
They're great on burgers,they're great on dogs.
They're great with brats.
They're of course great with.
Anything from a barbecue, whetheryou make it yourself or buy it from
a barbecue restaurant, brisket,pulled pork, ribs, all those
things, they're perfect with them.
Um, let me also say, this is weird, butif you put them with sour cream on a
(15:09):
baked potato, they are pretty Oh, sure.
Why not?
Fine.
On sour cream, on a baked potato.
Chop
Bruce (15:13):
them up.
Put them in
Mark (15:14):
chicken salad.
Yep.
Put them in egg salad.
Bruce (15:17):
Yep.
Oh my God.
There's so much you could do
Mark (15:18):
with this.
There is so much you can do with this, andin fact, the brine that this is in, if you
stick a tablespoon in it and don't pick upany of the spices, but just use the brine.
You can add a tiny bit ofthis brine to dressings.
You can use it as a marinade.
Mm-hmm.
When you're finally done with this whole.
Big jar of bread and butter pickles.
(15:39):
Then strain it so that you get out allof those extraneous bits of cucumber
and all the spices and all that, andthen pour it back into the jar and
literally, I'm serious, shove a coupleboneless skinless chicken breasts in
there for about an hour in the fridge.
It's a great.
Brine for those boneless,skinless chicken.
Then you
Bruce (15:57):
grill them and they're sweet again.
They can't sit in
Mark (15:59):
this brine more than an hour or two, or they'll get mushy, but uh, an
hour right in the fridge, they're perfect.
Also works
Bruce (16:05):
with center cut boneless pork chops.
Yep, they're great.
That's a great idea to usethis sugary brine syrup.
Mark (16:12):
Yep.
Again, let me just say that thisrecipes on our website is of
course in the book called Canning.
We hope that you'll takea look at that book.
It's up on Amazon or at retailersacross the country, or if
you want to avoid Amazon at.
Bookshop, which is the independent,uh, books sellers website.
You can find the book all over the place.
It's coming out at the end of July.
Uh, it's got, oh mygosh, how many recipes?
(16:33):
Four, four hundred and twenty
Bruce (16:34):
five.
Recipes,
Mark (16:35):
4 25 like this.
That makes small batches of thingsthat you need and you're alive that
Bruce (16:40):
you can do in real time without a lot of work and no
big pots of boiling water.
Oh my gosh.
And no processing blackberry
Mark (16:48):
conserve.
Is worth the admission to the book.
Mm-hmm.
But that's a for another matter.
Okay.
So that's our makingbread and butter pickles.
We appreciate your being a part of thisjourney with us and cooking along with us
in your car or wherever you are right now.
Um, and we're gonna get up, do whatwe usually do at the end, which
is what's making us happy in food.
This week.
(17:11):
I will start.
Okay.
So one of the things that'smaking me happy is it's that
time of year in New England when.
Rhubarb B in.
Mm-hmm.
And Bruce has made Rhubarb jamand he did not make the recipe
from our book, cold Canning.
There is a small batch, nocanning recipe from Rhubarb Jam.
I made a big batch in the book, but hemade the whole thing and he canned it.
(17:33):
Mm-hmm.
Bruce (17:33):
I did.
So they were in the pantry and they willstay there until we opened them all and
eat them all, or give them to people.
You know, the trick whenyou make rhubarb Jam is a.
Tiny, tiny little bit of vanilla.
It is because vanilla justbalances with rhubarb so Well.
It's the, but you can
Mark (17:47):
overpower it.
It's the trick of, uh, rhubarb pie.
Mm.
Not strawberry rhubarbpie, but rhubarb pie.
Uh, just, I mean, uh, like a halfa teaspoon of vanilla, it balances
out the rhubarb beautifully, and yetpreserves all that fabulous sour flavor.
Bruce (18:01):
Mm-hmm.
Mm mm mm What's making me happy infood this week are pecan brownies.
Mark (18:08):
Oh, right.
Oh gosh.
I made a batch
Bruce (18:09):
of gluten-free pecan brownies to bring to my knitting workshop.
So say what you did.
'cause it's fascinating.
So I taught a knitting workshop,um, at a local library, and
Mark (18:19):
I don't know that, that's so fascinating.
I
Bruce (18:20):
met
Mark (18:21):
the recipe, but come on.
Yeah.
So I
Bruce (18:22):
ground up a cup of.
Pecans and I then into the foodprocess where I ground them.
I put some salt and I put, I putsome salt and I put cocoa powder
and I let that all just go together.
And then I beat eggs and sugar and I usedduck eggs 'cause we have all these local
farms in us and I beat duck eggs andsugar until it was big and fluffy and.
(18:45):
Thick and white and I mixedin the chocolate nut mixture.
And then I folded in some measurefor measure flour alternative, the
gluten-free flour alternative from KingArthur flour and a little baking powder.
Mark (18:59):
They were super, I had a sneak bite before you took
them to the knitting group.
And they were super fudgy.
Mm-hmm.
Very collapsed.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, with a crunchy, crackly top.
And so nutty it was.
All those lovely pecans in there.
Round pecans.
We are lucky enough that wehave a friend from Texas who
sends us a gallon jug of mm-hmm.
(19:20):
Pecan halves, of course, from Texas,and they sit in our freezer unless
they go bad, but they sit in ourfreezer until Bruce uses them all
up, which I think you did them all.
I used them all
Bruce (19:30):
up.
That was all
Mark (19:31):
used up in those brownies.
I think they're all gone now.
The ladies at the workshop loved them.
They, oh man.
I grew up with fresh pecansfrom my grandparents on
their farm, and I love pecan.
Anything is enough for me.
Okay, so that's the podcast for this week.
We appreciate your.
Being with us.
We appreciate your being on this journeyand choosing us out of the vast array
of podcasts out there that we know thereis a billion podcasts out there and
(19:54):
we appreciate your being here with us.
Bruce (19:56):
And every week here we tell you what's making us happy in food.
So please go to our Facebookgroup, also called Cooking with
Bruce and Mark, and tell us what'smaking you happy in food this week.
'cause we are interested in whatis happening in your kitchen.
What's happening on your plateand what you're eating and loving,
and if it's really good, we mighteven try it and talk about it here
on cooking with Bruce and Mark.
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