Greedy Girl : Pineapple pickle sauce

Happy Independence Day!!!

I really can’t take total credit for this amazing idea. It was a collaboration between my good friend Nalla and me. In July I was talking to him about my recipes for August and saying I needed one more recipe idea to complete the month. It’s easy to come up with traditional Jamaican recipes and methods, but not as easy to come up with a twist on them. Now Nalla gets all intellectual on me, and says “based on all the things you already have planned, I feel you need something that utilizes a fruit or veggie, why not make a pickle?” DING, LIGHTBULB!

Let’s get some info on traditional Jamaican pickle or escovitch sauce. This is a very spicy concoction. You slice veggies; normally onion, sweet pepper and carrots with a whole lot of scotch bonnet pepper into pretty designs and allow them to soak in sealed vinegar filled jars for as long as possible. The longer the better, the vinegar permeates through the veggies carrying all that peppery goodness through. This is then spooned over fried fish for the dish Escovitch fish.

I will be soaking mine for three weeks before I use them, so stay tuned for that.

Where do I begin? let’s start with the fact that I actually picked this pineapple from my front yard. I always plan ahead for these posts, and the supermarket had two very sick looking pineapples, I opted not to buy those. So I took the chance and came home figuring I would find a few. I found one that could be picked, and a baby one that’s still growing. Lucky me, or this post would have turned into orange or avocado pickle. Avacado pickle…hmmmm

Now I won’t be able to describe taste for another three weeks. But I can tell you the smell is no joke. After stuffing the jars full and filling with the vinegar I had to reopen a jar because it was not sealed properly. The smell was amazing and so strong, you could smell the pimento, pineapples and pepper. I started to cough because of how strong the pepper scent was. My mother and boyfriend were in the kitchen standing behind me and they could smell it. I can just imagine three weeks from now; it’s going to be so good

Made two small jars: But you can cut up as much or as little to fit the size jars you have

Ingredients (Printable Recipe)

1 small Pineapple

2 cups Vinegar

1.5 Carrots

2 small Onion

6 Scotch bonnet Pepper

¼ cup Pimento (all spice)

1 tbsp. Sugar

1 tsp. Salt

1 or 2 jars depending on size

Instructions:

Slice one of the carrots and the pineapple uniformly into strips about the length of your jar, also cut up your onions, and peppers
Take the second carrot and slice a triangle out of the corner and remove it. Do this for the other three sides.
Then when you slice the carrot into circles, they come out looking like a little flower
Cut small boxes in the center of the carrots and stick a pimento grain in each
Next stuff your jars. Start with the onion and some pimento in the bottom, then the pineapple and carrots in the center, then peppers all around.
You really have to pack the jars with as much as possible, try to push in a few of the carrot flowers on the sides so they show through the glass. Stuff more onions, more pepper until the jar is full to the brim, cap it off with a carrot flour or a pepper.
Heat the vinegar, salt, lime juice and sugar on a stove top when it’s warm
Pour the vinegar into your stuffed jars, right up to the top as it’s about to over flow. When you place the lid on the excess vinegar will over flow. This is good as that means there is no air in your jar.
Rinse the bottle with water, dry and set on your table as decoration or store it in some corner of your kitchen and forget about it.