Our Recipes
Bread and Butter Pickle Gastrique
Prep. Time:
Baking Time:
15 mins
Total Time:
15 mins
Serves:
Enough for 8 servings
Cesar (Top Chef ™ Season 22) in a pickle challenge made a mustard tart, dill ice cream topped with "pickle gastrique". This is our version. Try it.
Ingredients
0.5 cups caster sugar
1 cup juice from Bread and Butter Pickles
Instructions
Tip the caster sugar into a cast iron skillet (I find the 6.5" one is perfect for this) and heat gently. Don't stir, no matter how tempting it is. Swirl the pan when you see the edges beginning to melt and then caramelize.
When all the sugar has dissolved into a medium-golden caramel, tip in half of the pickle juice. The caramel will immediately sizzle and turn to toffee but it will slowly melt. Now is the time to stir and stay patient, keeping the heat low to medium. Let all the caramel slowly melt back into a liquid and then reduce the gastrique fiercely until it is less than half the original volume.
If you're not going to serve the gastrique immediately, then store it in a metal container (I use a metal cup measure) so that you can immerse it in very hot water to liquify it again when you're ready to serve.
