Sweet and sour!

Every Sunday my family and I go to my parents house to eat Sunday dinner and catch up on what’s happened during the week. My mom makes traditional Danish dishes that are almost always accompanied by this side dish. It goes well with a wide variety of dishes from roast to ‘smoerebroed’ (traditional Danish rye bread open sandwiches). I actually can’t remember the last time she didn’t make these sweet and sour cucumber goodies. But beware!!! Once you tasted them you won’t make a sandwich without them again.

Pickled cucumber salad – Danish style (Agurkesalat)

Ingredients

1 cucumber sliced as thinly as you possibly can

1/2 cup (100 ml) distilled white vinegar

1/2 cup (80 g) sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Pour the sugar and the vinegar into the jar that you will later use to store the pickled cucumbers in. Put the lid on and make sure it is put on correctly or it will make a fine mess when you shake the mix.

2. Shake the jar well until you can’t see any sugar grains in the mixture anymore. It takes patience. You will have to shake for about 5 minutes. If you don’t have a jar with a fitting lid you can also stir the mix, but its a bit more time-consuming.

3. When you have cut the cucumber, you need to drain it of excess juice. I do this by taking a good handful of cucumber slices and squeeze them in my hands until they stop dripping any juice. Continue this till all the cucumbers are squeezed. It doesn’t matter if the cucumber slices kind of lose their original shape.

4. Then you add salt and pepper to the slices and mix it all together a bit with your fingers.

5. To finish, you put the seasoned cucumbers in the jar with the vinegar. Store it in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and you are good to go.

I always have a jar of these pickled cucumber in my fridge. They can be saved for several months, but they have a tendency to not last that long, since I have a vast amount of PCTs (pickled cucumber thieves) living in my house.

Enjoy!