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Taqueria-Style Pickles With Carrot, Onion, Serrano

Taco Time

How do you take your tacos? Last week for us, it was with eggplant. Sasha Divine, the sous chef at No Coast Reserve, prefers meat.

"I love carnita tacos," he says. "You marinate the pork, deep-fry it and shred the meat after it's tender. So good."

Seth Elgar, executive chef and general manager at No Coast, likes al pastor. "Pork with pineapple with guajillo chili and garlic," he says. "You cook it similarly to a gyro-style, on a spit. They cut it off with an electric knife."

As for the guajillo chili, it's one of his favorite flavors. "It's leathery, kind of cherry meets cranberry on the fruit scale. Flavorful without being destroyingly hot."

Fridge-Pickled Veggies

All these taco preparations would be enhanced with a little topper of these taqueria pickles by No Coast. These are a real homestyle refrigerator pickle with big chunks of veggies, rustic cut. Destroyingly hot? Not even close. These will taste light, mildly spicy and be very refreshing.

Elgar explains that they don't pressure can any of their pickles and they often don't even cook the veggies ahead of time, "So we're pouring brine over raw or blanched vegetables." This way, the vegetables maintain their integrity and last a lot longer on the shelf.

More: The menu at No Coast is packed with various pickles, from the predictable to the perplexing. Keep an eye out for their Pickled Brussels Sprouts. We'll post that recipe on the website this weekend!

Taqueria-Style Pickles With Carrot, Onion, Jalapeño

Ingredients

  • 1 pound of carrots, peeled
  • 2 onions (white or yellow), peeled
  • 5 serrano chilis, sliced in half with stems and seeds removed
  • 7 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
  • 2 teaspoons dry oregano
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 1 tablespoon peppercorns
  • 2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 3 cups white vinegar
  • 4 1/2 cups cold water

Instructions

  1. Bring vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorns and salt to a boil. Kill the burner, then let sit for one hour to infuse. Add the thinly sliced garlic to the vinegar mix. Leave for 10 minutes to cook, then add the water.
  2. To prepare the vegetables... Cut the carrots into 1/4-inch thick coins. Cut the onions in half, remove the woody core, and then cut into 1-inch wedges. Break them into petals. Slice the de-seeded serrarno chili halves in half once again.
  3. In a large mixing bowl, toss the carrots, onion and chilis with the oregano. Then transfer the veggies to 2-quart jars.
  4. Pour the brine over the top of the veggies, screw on the lids and refrigerate the jars.
  5. Let them pickle for 7+ days before serving. Agitate the jars regularly.


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