Dry-salted - Africa, Asia and Latin America

Dry-salted cucumber pickle

Name: Dry-salted cucumber pickle
Cuisine: Africa, Asia and Latin America

A cucumber that makes its own brine instead of being poured into one, with a fallback if it does not make enough. Khalpi, the Nepali summer version, is the same process cut into pieces.

7 steps, every one quoted from FAO Bulletin 134 6.1.2. The step labels are this site's; the sentences under them are not.

The ratio, as the source wrote it

1 kg per 20 kg small or 15 kg large cucumbers

1 kg of salt is added to every 20 kg of small cucumbers and 15 kg of large cucumbers.

FAO Bulletin 134 6.1.2

Left as a ratio rather than converted to a percentage, and not scaled into a table. It multiplies straight up or down, but the sentence carrying the figure often carries a condition with it, and separating the two is how a number arrives here looking more certain than its source made it.

Every number the source states

Salt: 1 kg per 20 kg small or 15 kg large cucumbers
Top-up brine if osmosis does not cover: 40°SAL
Fermentation time: one to four weeks
Brine forms by osmosis within: 24 hours

Substrate

Cucumber

Region

Method

Numbered for your place in the list. Every sentence below is the source's own, verified against the page it came from when this table was last built from the sources.

Select and wash
Fully ripe cucumbers without bruising or damage are washed in potable cold water and drained.
Whole or cut
The cucumbers can be pickled whole or sliced. With khalpi the cucumbers are washed, sliced and cut into 5-8 cm pieces.
Salt
1 kg of salt is added to every 20 kg of small cucumbers and 15 kg of large cucumbers.
Let the brine form
The brine should be formed within 24 hours by osmosis.
Top it up if it is short
If the brine formed by osmosis does not cover the cucumbers 40° Salometer brine is added to the desired level.
Stir once
A day or two after the tank is filled and closed the brine should be stirred in order to help equalise the concentration of salt throughout the mass (Vaughn, 1985).
Ferment
As soon as the brine is formed, fermentation starts and bubbles of carbon dioxide appear. Fermentation takes between one and four weeks depending on the ambient temperature. Fermentation is complete when no more bubbles appear.

The source's own flow diagram

Five of these recipes are printed in the bulletin with a process diagram beside the prose. It is lifted whole here, cells and all, because it is the closest thing the source has to a written recipe and it sometimes carries a detail the prose leaves out.

Stage	Note
Selection	Only ripe cucumbers should be selected
Wash	In clean water
Mix with salt	1kg salt for 15-20kg of cucumbers
Ferment	For between one and four weeks
Package	-

What else the source says

What the brine looks like while it works: During fermentation the brine becomes cloudy for the first few days due to the growth of bacteria.

Before you make this

This site is a reference and not a food safety authority. It reports what named sources published and does not certify that any preparation is safe. The safety page sets out what the sources themselves say about acidity, about surface growth and about when to throw something away, and equipment lists the instruments the numbers above cannot be checked without.

The full record for this pickle, including every source consulted and the ones that disagree, is on its tradition page.

Other dry-salted recipes

Method and asides from FAO 134 Battcock, M. and Azam-Ali, S. (1998) Fermented fruits and vegetables: A global perspective. FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin No. 134. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. Numbers from the same source, extracted separately and listed on methodology.