Pickles were always on the table at home, especially at breakfast and lunch. There are several ways to pickle cucumber, but this is one of the most popular in Sweden. It has a lovely balance of sweetness, vinegar and salt. These gherkins are wonderful on open sandwiches, with cold meats, pâté or fish. They’re just as good alongside fish tacos, or even burgers.
Dill, and dill crowns especially, are essential to proper Swedish pickled gherkins. They’re not easy to find here, so I’ve taken to growing my own. If you can’t buy or grow dill crowns, look for dill with long stalks instead — it has plenty of flavour and is best sliced before going into the pickling liquor. The gherkins should taste both salty and sweet, and never too vinegary.
This is a family recipe, passed down from my grandmother, with just a few small tweaks of my own. One thing I should explain first: I use a Swedish ingredient called ättika.
Ättika is a very strong vinegar with a sharp, sour taste and a pungent smell. It’s used widely in Swedish pickling and baking. You can’t simply swap it for ordinary vinegar — I’ve tried, and it doesn’t work. I’m told glacial acetic acid is a close substitute, though I’ve never used it myself. Ättika is easy enough to buy online. If you can only find the 24% strength, dilute it by taking half the amount stated in the recipe and adding an equal amount of water.
Ättika is available to buy online from Ocado – Swedish Shop and Totally Swedish.
I hope you enjoy them as much as my family do.
Classic Swedish Pickled Gherkins
Equipment
- 2 large sterilised kilner jars or 4 jam jars.
Ingredients
- 1 kg gherkins
- 15 g horseradish root peeled and sliced
- 4 Dill crowns stalks sliced
- 1 small bunch dill with long stalks if you can’t find crowns just use dill
- 400 g sugar
- 240 ml water
- 240 ml ättika 12% If you have 24% use 120ml and top up with the same of water, then proceed as per the recipe.
- 45 g salt
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 Tbls yellow mustard seeds
- 1 Tbls white peppercorns
Instructions
- Wash the gherkins well, they are quite prickly so take care. Cut the ends off and then slice.
- Place the slices into your sterilised jars layered with the dill, dill crowns, stalks, bay leaf & horseradish. Heat the sugar, water, salt, mustard seeds, peppercorns and ättika in a pan until it comes to the boil, simmer until the sugar and salt have dissolved. Pour over the gherkins and seal. They’re ready to eat in 5-7 days. Store in the fridge. Once opened use within 10 days.
Notes
Panna cotta with Rosehip Coulis
Hi Louise, I’m so glad I found your blog. My late husband’s father was Swedish and his mother Finnish. We met in Finland where I lived for 14 years and I love scandi cooking.
For this pickled cucumber recipe should it be stored in the fridge immediately or left out for the first 5-7 days? I wasn’t sure.
Hello Christine,
How lovely, Finland is beautiful. You should put them in the fridge immediately after adding the pickling liquor, when they’ve cooled to room temperature.