It’s grape season, and I’ve been trying out a new recipe for preserving some of our extra grapes. This recipe suits our situation especially well, since we also have lots of tarragon in the garden at the moment. The recipe comes from Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning. I’ve been curious for quite a while about some of the recipes in this book, but this is the first one I’ve actually tried.
Pickled grapes
Note: The original recipe is called “Bicolored Grapes” and calls for white and black grapes packed into the jar in layers. This sounds very decorative, but unfortunately our white grapes finished cropping quite a while ago now.
I did not exactly follow the original recipe, since I used apple cider vinegar instead of wine vineger, and rapadura instead of sugar.
Here is my version of the recipe:
Pickled Grapes
*Snip plenty of fresh ripe grapes off their bunches with a pair of scissors, leaving a short stem attached to each one.
*Wash the grapes and dry each one carefully with a cloth.
*Pack the grapes into jam jars.
*In each jar, put some bits of fresh tarragon, a clove, and a couple of white pepper corns, plus about a teaspoon of rapadura (dehydrated cane juice). I varied these quantities depending on the sizes of the jars.
*Then cover the grapes with apple cider vinegar, put the lids on the jars, and put them away in a dark cupboard. They are supposed to be stored for about 6 weeks before using.
This recipe fascinated me as I’d never heard of pickled grapes before! The recipe book describes them thus: “Both sweet and sour in taste, these grapes go impeccably well with poultry or game terrines.” Sounds good, but we won’t know if we like the result for a good while yet since they need to be stored before eating! I’ll be sure to report back once we have finally tasted them.
How interesting! I can’t wait to hear how these taste! 🙂