Pickle & Condiment Atlas · Side
Chicago Hot Giardiniera
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with acid holding everything up to the light, a briny, maritime salinity, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 200 g celery, 1 cm dice
- 150 g carrot, 1 cm dice
- 150 g cauliflower florets, 1 cm
- 100 g red pepper, 1 cm dice
- 100 g serrano or green chilli, sliced 5 mm
- 60 g green olives, chopped
- 1 litre water
- 60 g fine sea salt
- 100 g white wine vinegar
- 180 g neutral oil
- 120 g olive oil
- 6 g dried oregano
- 8 g garlic, sliced thin
- 3 g chilli flakes
- 2 g celery seed
- 2 g cracked black pepper
The skills inside
Knife cuts: dice, julienne, bias
The words inside
Allergen screen
Found: celery
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Stir the salt into the water until it dissolves, pour it over the diced vegetables and chilli, and weight them under. Leave 12 hours at room temperature. 600 min
- Drain and rinse well, then taste one: it should read seasoned, not salty. Spread on a cloth and pat dry.
- Toss the vegetables with the vinegar and leave 30 minutes. Keep the vinegar: it goes into the jar with them. 30 min
- Fold through the olives, oregano, garlic, chilli flakes, celery seed and pepper, pack into jars with the vinegar, and pour over both oils to cover by 1 cm.
- Refrigerate 48 hours before serving, and stand the jar out 20 minutes first so the olive oil clears from cloudy to loose. Refrigerate, and use within 4 days. 600 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Knife cuts: dice, julienne, bias 150 recipes
- Take any three pieces from anywhere in the pile: they match closely enough in every dimension that you would have to measure them to argue otherwise.
- The cut faces are flat and clean rather than ragged or crushed; leaves and herbs are cut through, not bruised, and the board carries no dark smear where they were.
- The stated size is the actual size, held against a rule or a known reference rather than called about right.
- Everything in the pile is the shape that was asked for: no wedges, no half pieces, and no offcuts swept in to avoid waste.
- They cook evenly, which is the entire point: at the end of cooking nothing is still raw and nothing has collapsed.
Where it goes wrong The knife was dull, or the vegetable was never squared off first, so the pieces vary: the small ones are mush by the time the large ones are cooked, and the dish has two textures where it wanted one.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
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