Pickling Onions Made Easy! - Historical Food Preservation

Today we show you an excellent historical recipe for traditional pickled onions! This method is from The Housekeepers Pocketbook from 1739. You have to try this out! It's delicious!
#townsendspickledonions

[binxsmooth]

The wife of an English friend of mine makes pickled onions in malt vinegar. Once the onions are eaten up, he keeps the flavored vinegar in little bottles for fish and chips. He brought some to the USA on a visit. AMAZING!

[dawnmorris]

Sliced pickled onions on a roast beef and horseradish sandwich! Yum yum.

[keithdawes]

In England EVERYONE eats pickled onions. A lot of us pickle our own To peel onions quickly, top and tail them, then put in a bowl, cover over with hot water, wait for 15 minutes, and you will find that the skins can be lifted off easily with your fingers.  And to get a superb flavour, only use English malt vinegar. Thank you for a really good video.

[toddcanterino]

That skinning technique is a life changer in the kitchen. LOL. Thanks.

[mikepellerin]

Thanks for the upload. I was a weird kid growing up. I liked pickles, liver and onions, cabbage and broccoli. I once found an old Colonial Cook Book in my public Library in Massachusetts. I hand copied (this pre-dates Xerox machines) many of the recipes. I still have a few of them, many got lost or fell apart. That was in the 1960s. Since then I scour old book stores and now the internet for vintage recipes to add to my collection. I also collected many of my Family Recipes. I'm the sole keeper of many of my Grandparents and Parents recipes. Family recipes should be shared with everyone. Maybe Townsends should make a Vintage Recipe Repository, where folks could put their favorite recipes up by Decade?

[Crimsonedge]

Yeah, once you've pickled them, so long as you store them in the vinegar in some kind of screw-top jar, they don't need refrigeration at all. Just store in a cool dark place away from extreme temperature variations.
They're edible even after a couple of years. 5 year old pickled silverskins that have just been stored in a kitchen cupboard are the oldest I've eaten and they were still in good condition. Definitely edible. Assuming they carried on in the same manner, I dare say they'd have still been good after a decade. The high acidic content of the vinegar removes worries of things like botulism rearing its ugly head.

Then again, between all the natural chemicals in onions and the ones in the vinegar, you're unlikely to ever get spoilage from rot or mould either. I'm not willing to say its impossible as absence of proof is not proof of absence but I know for sure I've never seen mould develop in a jar below the level of any vinegar.

Its why we humans learned to pickle in the first place. It works.

[debbieboring]

I have never had pickled onions. But I love the crisp crunch when you ate one, that sounded so good.

[terry]

Pickled sliced red onions is a great favorite here with tacos or sandwiches. Love your videos, thanks for what you do to present and encourage historic interpretations. Nothing like period cooking inspiration. Also the preparation and historic layout is a visual delight.

[allanyeats]

Tried a batch...seasoned with mustard powder. Totally excellent!

Greetings from the 21st century!

[braunsteinfreres]

Pickled onioins with some dry sausage and cheese and french bread is the best meal of all time. This recipe is very helpful.

[TruthAndLight]

Corner stores in cities used to sell pickled onions when I was a kid in the 1970's. Great treat!

[rachelhudson]

Pickled onions are still popular in the uk. We use a special spice mix readily available and we use malt vinegar,

[peterdurnien]

you seemed to have missed the most important thing in pickling onions. Get the hardest ones you can, soft onions will only become mush. Properly pickled onions that I made lasted 14 months in jars in a cupboard, they were still crunchy.

[waynepreston]

I love pickled onions and always have, thank you for your video.

[candiwalkowski]

My great-grandmother would pickle garlic with her dill pickles - they were so delicious, we would have fork fights over the cloves!

[saungbriesen]

We tried this recipe and it turned out fantastic. Your suggestion on how to peel the onions saved us a lo of time, thank you.

[miketypeeach]

Those onions appear to be monster good! Yes, I have a "Townsends" folder in my favorites list. This recipe is now in it.

[debbienarkansas]

You read my mind of what I am doing today.! Going through all the food storage ideas I can. I was looking for onion storage ideas and this is one.! I am thankful you have this video.!

[troynov]

MY neighbor has a few peach trees and every year we pickle some, talk about GOOD!

[skch]

They are still eaten mainly in pubs or family parties, we have them on wooden tooth picks with a small piece of pineapple and cheddar cheese.