These pickled onions should provide a bit of warmth when they are ready in the new year, the spicy pickling vinegar is added to by tucking a few chillies in the jars.
I used up the remainder of a 5 kg bag of onions I recently bought for the bargain price of £3.75, much more cost effective than buying small bags from the supermarket.
The first half of the bag had gone in making sweet pickled onions.

This hot and spicy recipe used spicy pickling vinegar.

Recipe Costs

£1.87 2.5kg pickling onions
£0.19 500g salt
£0.75 1 litre malt vinegar
£0.10 1 tsp coriander seeds
£0.03 1 tsp mustard seeds
£0.20 4 tsp cumin seeds
£0.26 5 cardamons £0.19 5 cloves
£0.10 10 g fresh ginger
£0.03 1 tsp garam marsala (whole, not ground)
£0.24 4 fresh chillis
£3.86 Total
£1.54 per kg of onions (about quarter the cost of traditional pickled onions (not budget ones) from tesco)

This mix of spices would be great even without the extra chillies, I choose a good selection of seeds making sure there were about 15g - 30g to each litre of vinegar. These were then added to the vinegar and brought to the boil, then left to stand overnight. You could use a Spice Bag , but I just make sure I strain the vinegar carefully.

The onions are topped, tailed and peeled, then mixed with the salt and left to stand overnight as well.

The next day they are rinsed, and almost look good enough to eat already. The salt has removed a large amount of water which should make them nice and crunchy.

The onions are packed into steralised jars, I find if you push them down you can get them to fit nice and tight and the top layer tucks pleasingly under the shoulder of the jar.
I decided to put two half chillies in each jar, time will tell if this is being overly keen.

The end result looks good and will be left to mature for several months in a cool dark cupboard.

Recipe Timings

30 mins peeling and salting
10 mins preparing vinegar
overnight salting and cooling
15 mins potting

Taste Test

Very spicy, not for the faint hearted.
I would probally halve the amount of chillis inthe jar next time as I could only manage to eat these onions chopped up in a sandwich.

After the success (I hope) of making pickled onions last week, I've been keen to make some more, so hopefully we've got enough to last us the whole of next year. I picked up a 5kg sack of pickling onions from the local fruit and veg shop, along with 5 litres of malt vinegar, the plan being to try out some different mixes of spices and flavours.

This recipe makes  sweet pickled onion which may suit those who don't like too much of the sharp taste of vinegar.

It uses the recipe for sweet pickling vinegar, of which I made 2.5 litres, as I only used 1 litre I have scaled the costs and spices below down accordingly. You could get away with only making a litre and topping up some of the jars with malt vinegar (or any other sort - balsamic might be nice).

Recipe Costs

£1.87 2.5kg pickling onions
£0.19 500g salt
£0.17 180g granulated sugar
£0.75 1 litre malt vinegar
£0.04 1 blade of mace
£0.05 15 cloves
£0.05  15 allspice berries
£0.17 1 cinnamon stick
£0.11 2 heads star anise
£0.04 1 tsp peppercorns
£0.05 5 g fresh ginger
£3.49 Total
£1.39 per kg of onions (about quarter the cost of traditional pickled onions (not budget ones) from tesco)

Making pickled onions takes a bit of time, and needs to be done over a few days, that said each step is not that time consuming, I did this batch over two evening while cooking the tea. The first step is to make the spiced vinegar, which means selecting a bowl full of spices (around 15g - 30g per litre of vinegar).

You can put them in a Spice Bag or just make sure you strain the vinegar carefully afterward. Add the  spices and sugar to the vinegar and bring it slowly to the boil stirring to make sure the sugar is dissolved. Then turn off the heat, cover, and let it stand at least overnight for the flavours to develop. This fills the kitchen with a wonderful spicy smell, although it is a bit vinegary.

The second step is topping and tailing and then peeling the onions. This  is the most time consuming task although you can loosen the skins  by scalding the top and tailed onions in boiling water for 20 seconds then draining. Be careful not to leave them in the water too llong as they will start to soften.

The peeled onions are then put in a bowl and mixed with the salt, this draws out some of the water (by osmosis - diffusion of water through a semi-permeable membrane - remember that from school?) Leave these covered overnight, giving them a stir before going to bed, it's amazing how much water this produces, and it will help make the onions crunchy and preserve better.
No photos of osmosis action, but there are some in my last post about pickled onions.

The next day rinse the onions with very cold water, to get rid of the salt, and pack them in steralised jars.
Strain the vinegar, unless you want to leave some of the spices in for decoration, I couldn't resist popping a star anise in each jar. I figured it would help me remember which jars contained the sweet onions.

Pour over the cold vinegar, it's important to cover the top onions with at least a 1 cm of vinegar as some may evaporate during storage.

The pickles should be kept in a cool dark place for a few months to allow the flavours to mature.

Recipe Timings

30 mins peeling and salting
10 mins preparing vinegar
overnight salting and cooling
15 mins potting

Taste Test

These have a very strong flavour, which I can only think comes from leaving the star anise in the jar. I'll leave it out next time..

We always have a jar of pickled onions in our fridge, they're an essential part of most meals involving a sandwich. We're partial to anything from a small silverskin to a whopping spicy golf ball sized pickle.

Pickling onions have been available in the shops for several weeks now, so it's time to get the goggles out, put a piece of bread in your mouth and start peeling.

The first batch I'll make this year is a reasonably quick process, where the peeked onions are sprinkled with salt and left overnight, rather than the more traditional method of soaking in brine. Both of these processes remove some of the water from the onions, which can dilute the vinegar in the jar reducing the shelf life.

You can buy ready spiced pickling vinegar, but it's easy to make your own and you can choose how to flavour it. Which spices to use is a matter of taste and opinion, I've not gone too hot with this recipe, but most recipes call for variations on the following: coriander, mustard seed, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, bay leaves and black pepper. I've added some garam marsala (whole, not ground as this would make the vinegar cloudy), which also contains cumin seeds, black, brown, & green cardamom and star anise.

The basic recipe is taken from the River Cottage Handbook No.2: Preserves.

See here for the pickled onion recipe.

Recipe Costs

£2.00 1.5kg pickling onions
£0.28 750g salt
£0.16 175g granulated sugar
£1.28 1 litre malt vinegar
£0.09 3 tsp mustard seeds
£0.04 1 tsp peppercorns
£0.03 1 tsp garam marsala
£0.17 1 cinnamon stick
£4.05 Total
£2.89 per kg of onions (about half the cost of traditional pickled onions (not budget ones) from tesco)

The onions are top and tailed and then soaked in boiling water for 20 seconds, which helps loosen the skin.

After peeling and being laid out in a shallow dish, salt is poured over and the dish covered up for the night.

Meanwhile the spiced vinegar is prepared by mixing with the spices and bringing to boiling point, you can use a muslin bag to hold the spices, although I find straining afterward works just as well. This is then left to cool overnight.

After 12 hours the salt has removed about 100ml of water from the onions, which are rinsed and packed into steralised jars.

The cool vinegar is poured over (if a soft onion is preferred it can be reheated before pouring) and a few bay leaves tucked in. It's important to cover the top onions with at least a 1 cm of vinegar as some may evaporate during storage.

The pickles should be kept in a cool dark place for a few months to allow the flavours to mature.

Recipe Timings

20 mins peeling and salting
10 mins preparing vinegar
overnight salting and cooling
15 mins potting

Taste Test

These have turned out well, in fact I prefer them to the sweet pickled onions and hot and spicy picked onions I also made this year.
I guess, in this case, you just can't beat the classic recipe.