This recipe was adopted from David Lebovitz and Arthur Holly
The first time we made these I was a bit skeptical, but after having them on fish tacos one night I was sold. Megan instigated this second round of pickling. The original recipe only requires 3/4 cup of vinegar but we like the using more vinegar so the onions are stored in the excess vinegar.
- 3 cups of white vinegar
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- pinch of salt
- 1 bay leave
- 5 allspice berries
- 5 cloves
- 2 sticks of cinnamon
- 1 small dried chile pepper
- 1 large red onion thinly sliced
1. In a small pan add vinegar, sugar, salt, seasonings and chile and heat until boiling.
3. Lower heat to medium.
2. Add 1/3 of the onion and simmer for 20 seconds
3. Carefully remove onions from pot without removing the spices and seasonings. Place onions on baking sheet and let cool.
4. Repeat previous two steps for the rest of the onion.
5. After all of the onion has been “cooked” and cooled on the backing sheet, repeat steps 2 – 4. One of Arthur Holly’s tips of pickling onions were to cook the onions twice for 20 seconds verses 1 round of 30 seconds. If you use a large enough pot you can do the whole onion at once, just make sure you have enough vinegar in the pot.
6. After onions have cooled, transfer onion, liquid, and spices into jars then refrigerate. After a week the onions are good to eat, but they will keep for months.