Pickle and hot sauce specialists Shedletskys, founded by husband and wife duo James Cooper and Natalie Preston, have just launched their debut cookbook Tickle Your Pickle with Shedletskys How to make (and eat) handmade pickles, ferments and brines.

It’s a lovely hardback published by Ryland, Peters & Small at £16.99. 

We hear a great deal nowadays about how good for us fermented foods are, and this book has all the tools you need to start making your own at home.   You can discover 65 recipes that put handmade pickles centre-stage, from classic deli-style dill-pickled cukes and Italian giardiniera to Korean kimchi and South American curtido.  

Here are a couple of recipes to ‘tickle your fancy’ and tempt you to invest in the book.

Classic deli dill-pickled cucumber

Makes 1 large jar

“This is it. The bubbe pickle of Jewish deli culture. It’s the pickle that most people probably think of when you tell them you make pickles for a living. But here’s the thing. For the longest time, we steered clear of making them, especially commercially for Shedletskys. Why? Well, as a pickle that entirely relies on salt to preserve them, they are a little tricky to get right. Relying on a salt brine means that however carefully you sterilize things and keep your surfaces clean, sometimes things go wrong. In a commercial setting, this is a problem. You can get consistency by adding preservatives, but we didn’t want to do that in any of our products. So these incredible pickles remain an at-home treat for us.

“Accuracy is critical if you want to give yourself the best chance of success with these pickles. That’s why we always suggest weighing the salt and water used here rather than relying on spoon measurements.”

small Persian cucumbers (about 1 kg)

50 g salt

3 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds

1 teaspoon dill seeds (optional)

3 dried bay leaves

2-cm/3/4-inch strip of kombu (optional)

10 g fresh dill fronds

a large 2-litre preserving jar (or something that will comfortably accommodate the cucumbers with about 3 cm/11/4 inches headroom)

fermentation weight (or water-filled, sealable plastic sandwich bag)

Slice the bottoms and tops off the cucumbers and place in a large bowl. Fill with very cold water and add a few ice cubes to keep the cucumbers really cold while you prepare the brine. (Keeping the vegetables chilled helps to preserve their crunch later in the pickling process.)

In a separate bowl, measure exactly 1 litre (or 1 kg/21/4 lb. if using a digital scale) water from the tap. Add the salt and whisk vigorously until the salt is completely dissolved. Add the garlic, peppercorns, mustard seeds and dill seeds (if using) to the brine. Stir to distribute everything in the brine.

Remove the cucumbers from their ice bath. Arrange in a large sterilized jar so they are standing on their ends. Add the bay leaves, kombu (if using) and dill fronds and carefully pour in the brine to cover. Make sure all of the spices go into the jar along with the brine.

Weigh down the cucumbers so they are completely submerged using a fermentation weight or a water-filled, sealable plastic sandwich bag. Leave on the side until bubbles start to form – usually after a couple of days. At this point start testing the pickles. There should be a pleasant, slightly sour taste. This will develop further the longer you leave them. We like our pickles after about a week of fermentation, but feel free to experiment to your own taste.

Once you are happy with how the pickles taste, pop them in the fridge to slow down the fermentation. They will continue to ferment, getting softer and more sour and will still be tasty up to 6 weeks after you made them. (We have had batches that are still delicious 3 months after we made them.)

If at any point the pickles go mouldy or the brine becomes excessively cloudy, discard them and chalk the failed batch down to experience.

Pink pickled turnips

Makes 1 large jar (unless your turnips are monsters)

“I don’t know if it’s a widely held view, but we think the best bit of a falafel wrap is always the pickles that accompany it. And the best pickle of all the selection is the pink turnip. It isn’t the easiest pickle to find in stores, so we came up with our own version that captures the bright, spicy appeal of the original.

“Excellent served in a falafel wrap (obviously!), but also good in all manner of sandwiches.”

3 turnips (about 600 g), scrubbed if they’re looking dirty

1 large beetroot (about 150–200 g)

2 garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed

1 red chilli

150 ml white vinegar

25 g white sugar

25 g salt

2 dried bay leaves

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon sumac

Cut the turnips into fat matchsticks or chips and place in a large bowl. Peel and grate the beetroot directly into the same bowl (gloves are useful here to prevent your hands being stained pink). Using a metal spoon, stir to make sure the vegetables are well mixed together. Add the garlic cloves, which should be lightly crushed. Take the red chilli and pierce it a couple of times with the tip of a knife. Add this to the bowl and toss to mix.

Add all of the mixed vegetables to a sterilized jar.

In the same bowl (no need to wash it out), mix the vinegar with 250 ml water, along with the sugar and salt. Whisk vigorously until the sugar and salt dissolve and the brine clears. Add the bay Leaves, black peppercorns and sumac and whisk again gently.

Pour the brine over the vegetables, seal the jar and give it a shake to mix everything together.

The turnips will gradually pick up the colour from the beetroot, going a lovely pink colour. This should take about a week, but the pickles will be tasty sooner than that. They’ll keep for at least one month when stored in the fridge.

Making mustard with pickle brine

Makes 1 large jar

“For a while, we were obsessed with trying to make mustard. We made kimchi mustard, beer mustard and pickle mustard. Whatever we attempted, we always found the results to be unpleasantly bitter, so we parked our mustard mania and moved on to other things.

“Fast forward six months, we found some of our mustard experiments at the back of the cupboard and tasted them again. They were amazing, time had mellowed them out, removing the bitterness and leaving some delicious mustard that was far more interesting than anything found in a supermarket.

“Even though we were happy with the results, we didn’t make mustard that often. The six-month fermentation meant we really had to plan ahead if we thought we might want some mustard in the future.

“While we were recipe testing for this book, we came across the technique of repeatedly rinsing mustard seeds in boiling water to remove their bitterness.

“It cuts the fermentation time down from six months to only one month, which means making your own mustard is much more accessible.

“You can also make mustard with the pickled mustard seeds. Simply skip straight to blitzing the already pickled mustard seeds with their own brine in the ratios listed below for a double pickle mustard. Delicious.”

200 g yellow mustard seeds

100 g brown mustard seeds

boiling water, to cover

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

100 ml pickle brine

50 ml white vinegar

1 teaspoon mustard powder

2 tablespoons pickles from the same batch

Add the yellow and brown mustard seeds to a fine-mesh sieve. Stir with your hand to mix them evenly and place the sieve in the sink. Fill the kettle with water and boil. Pour the boiling water over the mustard seeds, making sure all of them get saturated. Repeat this with two more kettle’s worth of boiling water. Once the seeds have been rinsed three times, leave them to drain, then place them in a large glass container or jar.

Boil the kettle one more time and pour 450 ml/2 cups boiling water over the mustard seeds. Cover and leave the mustard seeds to soak for 24 hours.

After 24 hours, drain the water from the mustard seeds and place them in a blender with the salt, sugar, pickle brine, vinegar and mustard powder. Blitz to a smooth paste, adjusting the consistency with a little more pickle brine if necessary. Finely chop the pickles themselves and fold through the mustard, then decant into a sterilized jar with a lid.

Store out of direct sunlight for at least one month to allow the flavours to mellow before tasting and adjusting with more salt and sugar as needed. Once you’re happy with the flavour, store in the fridge for up to one year.

Tickle Your Pickle with Shedletsky’s by James Cooper and Natalie Preston, published by Ryland Peters & Small (£16.99)

Photography by Mowie Kay © Ryland Peters & Small