top of page

Oгірки


Cucumbers are a cheap vegetable in Ukraine. I got all these plus more for less than ¢50. If you know me, you know I absolutely hate cucumbers and have since I was a young child. It's been difficult to avoid over the past 15 months, but I've managed. Now that I live on my own again I can make my own food exactly how I like, so I decided to try to make oгірки (ohirky) and they turned out so good I just had to share the recipe. In Ukraine pickles are called oгірки which directly just translates to cucumbers. When I asked a teacher why they don't use the word for pickle she said, "well that would be confusing you can pickle many foods and saying [pickled cucumbers] everytime would take too long."

I started by slicing up the cucumbers, and yes I did have to scrub my hands to get rid of the smell after so I didn't get nauseous.

I boiled 3 cups of white vinegar, 1 cup of apple cider vinegar and four cups of water together. While that was boiling I transferred the cucumbers to one large jar. I love spicy food so I wanted to try to make spicy pickles too, so I added about 4-5 full garlic cloves to the jar along with 3-4 tablespoons of crushed red pepper. Then because I'm not much of a cook and I got nervous if the garlic flavor would be tasted because they were full gloves I added 2 more crushed garlic cloves to the jar.

I added two tablespoons of salt, some ground pepper, and of course a bunch of fresh dill I got at the local bazaar. I let the vinegar/water mixture cool (because I read online the glass could crack), added it to the pickle jar and topped it off with a shot of vodka. I set it out on my glassed in balcony for three days before I got tempted to taste them. I was a little nervous because I had never made pickles before, and mostly because I was afraid they would taste like cucumbers. BUT they ended up tasting amazingly spicy! I moved them to my fridge and enjoyed them for about a month before they were all gone and I'm planning on making some more as soon as possible!

 

Oгірки

Makes: about 30 spears

Ingredients

  • 8-10 cucumbers

  • 3 cups white vinegar

  • 1 cup apple cider vinegar

  • 7-10 cloves of garlic

  • 3-4 tablespoons of crushed red pepper

  • 2 tablespoons of course salt

  • ground pepper to taste

  • a bunch of fress dill

  • 1 shot of vodka

Instructions

  1. Boil vinegars with four cups of water.

  2. Slice each cucumbers into 4 spears and transfer to a large jar.

  3. Add 4-5 full cloves of garlic and 3-4 crushed cloves of garlic to the jar with cucumbers.

  4. Add crushed red pepper, salt, ground pepper, dill and vodka to cucumbers.

  5. Let vinegar and water mixture cool before adding to the jar.

  6. Leave sit for 3-14 days before enjoying!

 

Comments

bottom of page