h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My tip is to bung the unpeeled onions in the sink with the plug in, pour in a large saucepan of boiling water, and stir around for about a minute, then drain. It makes them much easier to peel! But my question is---the above is all I do then put them in a jar with some cheap pickling vinegar---and they are very buoyant so that the ones at the top of the jar are floating half out of the vinegar. Can anyone help a confused old man with a way round that? (Apart from the obvious!)

Pack them so tight that they can't float - the longer you leave them they'll shrink enough to be able to get them out of the jar. Alternatively, weight them down with a saucer on top until they have absorbed enough vinegar to lose bouyancy

Doesn't your version make for slightly soggy onions, or do you leave them until cold before adding the vinegar?

shazz

Thanks. No, they're not at all soggy. The boiling water thing just wrinkles the skins a bit and makes them easy to peel. By the time you've done that they've cooled down anyway. Packing tightly doesn't work (incidentally if you do that to pickled EGGS then they bond together and will break up as you try to separate them!). I already use the weighting idea but thought there must be a better way!

I use ready spiced vinegar but after bottling I add a dried chilli to some jars (for about 2 weeks) and some sugar to others. It gives two diffferent tastes. Obviously you can vary your flavours - mustard seed works too.