Skip to navigation Skip to content
Print

Waitrose

Zoomer icon

Piccalilli

Back

 
 

Piccalilli

Traditionally, all the vegetables in a piccalilli are salted, but I find the flavours are punchy enough, so I skip this stage. Substitute courgette for the cucumber and runner beans for French beans if you wish. It’s delicious with ham, cold chicken, Cheddar or the game terrine.

Preparation time:
30 minutes
Cooking time:
25 minutes to 30 minutes
Total time:
55 minutes to 1 hour 60 minutes
Makes:
 1.7kg

Ingredients

  • 700ml Malt vinegar
  • 2 tbsp Coriander seeds
  • 500g Cauliflower, broken into 3cm florets
  • 2 Onions, peeled and chopped
  • 3 tbsp English mustard powder
  • 3 tbsp Plain flour
  • 1 tbsp Turmeric
  • 2 tsp Ground ginger
  • 150ml Cider vinegar
  • 100g French beans, trimmed and cut into 1cm slices
  • ½ Cucumber, quartered lengthways and cut into 1cm slices
  • 2 Garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
  • 200g Granulated sugar

Method

  1. Place the malt vinegar and coriander seeds in a large preserving pan and bring to a boil. Add the cauliflower and onion and simmer for 5 minutes until slightly softened but still crunchy. Meanwhile, put the mustard, flour, turmeric and ginger in a small bowl and gradually whisk in the cider vinegar until smooth. Add the remaining vegetables, garlic and sugar to the pan and stir over the heat for 2–3 minutes until the sugar has dissolved. Drain over a large bowl to collect the vinegar.
  2. Put the mustard mixture in the pan and bring to the boil. Gradually add the drained malt vinegar and simmer for 10 minutes, until thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Add the drained vegetables and take off the heat. Spoon into sterilised jars – if they’re not kilner jars, cover them with plastic discs and elastic bands rather than metal lids, which can sometimes react with the vinegar.

Comments and images

Average user rating 4 stars out of 5

Add your comment and share your thoughts and pictures with others.

londongirln19

londongirln19 05 November 2011 14:47

I, too, will never buy piccalilli ever again having made this. I's really quick to make and has much less salt than all the other recipes I've found (because it misses out the 24-hour salt bath). I made it a few weeks ago but couldn't wait any longer before trying it. I just ate it with crusty bread and mature English Cheddar and could have finished the jar in one go. Delicious. I added a jar of rinsed siverskin onions as I love the texture and couldn't find any fresh ones small enough. Watch out for tea towels and other fabrics as this pickle stains everything yellow. Worth it though. Better makes some more quick.

persianface

persianface 07 October 2010 22:50

can somebody tell me when this is ready to eat and how long it lasts

Cadizfox

Cadizfox 01 September 2010 20:06

This is a very simple recipe and even though we made one or two modifications the taste of the mustard sauce is fantastic. As we live in Spain, we do not have access to all the ingredients as listed.. The beans are out of season and we didn’t have cucumber, so we used fresh red peppers, courgettes and aubergines all out of our garden. A great way to use up some surplus vegetables. Also, we didn’t have cider vinegar so we used honey vinegar. To get the best colour, use WHITE malt vinegar. We are looking forward to the next time we have cold park and chips. Many thanks

Goujeers

Goujeers 14 February 2010 12:35

I agree with Alex R about the spicing and the sugar, and I've found it best to crush the coriander seeds first (but not to use ground coriander). If you use cornflour (corn starch) rather than plain flour the recipe is suitable for people who have to avoid gluten. The first time I made it I found myself with more of the mustard mix than I needed. With some diced fresh pineapple it made a great cooking sauce for pork chops.

welshchick21

welshchick21 17 January 2010 13:53

I love this recipe and have made it numerous times! its a winner...

Alex R

Alex R 24 October 2008 19:27

I have made this recipe several times and it really does work! It also scales up readily and is very forgiving on vegetables used (last time I used equal amounts of cauliflower and butternut squash, with half this quanitiy of beans). I have some comments on spicing levels: 200gm of sugar seems an awful lot to me and I used 50gm (40gm last time). Even the very sweet-toothed have never said they would like it to be sweeter. I really like the idea that you don't need to soak all the veg. in brine overnight, but adding 50gm of salt to the recipe seems a sensible way of counterbalancing this omission. I used 4 cloves of garlic, not 2, and added a fresh red chilli (deseeded). I have also found that 1 tbsp of ginger goes very well, instead of 2 tsp. My only other comment is that I found 3cm florets far too big unless you are using very wide-necked jars. I found it went better with 1cm florets. But it is a delicious and very easy recipe!

cakebaker_cakemaker

cakebaker_cakemaker 04 September 2008 03:19

I made this yesterday...do I have to wait for it to stand for a few weeks before Ieat it?

SusieT

SusieT 03 May 2008 18:54

I will never buy piccalilli again now that I have tried this recipe. I even threw away a shop bought jar I had in the fridge. This is wonderful stuff and everyone who has tried it has praised it - I'm about to make my third batch.

Add comment/image

Delete comment

Are you sure you want to delete this comment?

Cancel

4 stars out of 5

Average user rating Based on 105 ratings

Thank you for rating this recipe. If you'd like to comment further on this recipe you can do so in the Customer comment & images section on the bottom of the page.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Click to rate this recipe

Nutritional Info

Typical values per serving:
Energy 28.0kcal
Sugars 4.1g
Fat 0.4g
Saturated Fat 0.1g
Salt trace

Click here for more information about health and nutrition


This recipe was first published on Waitrose.com in October 2007