Sunday Stills - Snacks

Some time ago, I mentioned that I was pickling my home-grown shallots and garlic.  This weeks theme for Sunday Stills is "Snacks," so it seemed like a perfect excuse to check how my pickles are maturing.

Visiting friends gave us a reason to enjoy an aperitif before heading out for dinner.  I find whole idea of "an aperitif" (a little snack before dinner!) very pleasant, and one can go to great lengths to produce a table full of nibbles, but I restrained myself admirably.  We served a plate of charcuterie - cured meats with a little goats cheese on the side.  My two types of pickled garlic were retrieved from the store-room so that we could test them on our friends.

The garlic in the clear liquid is pickled in white wine vinegar with various herbs and spices, following a recipe I found on epicurious.com.  The garlic which you can't see in the black liquid has been pickled in Balsamic vinegar, mostly following this recipe, at the suggestion of the LSH and against my better judgement.

My better judgement was wrong, the Balsamic pickled garlic is superb - sweet, sour, a little spicy and crunchy, all at the same time.  The other garlic is fine, but the Balsamic version is head and shoulders above it.

However, I think this is my best photo of the night - cropped in to remove my knees from the foreground, but these are two wannabe snackers.