By Pickled jalapenos en escabeche
The jar on every taqueria table, with carrots and onion. Frying the vegetables first is what separates these from the canned kind.
- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 12 min
- Makes
- about 1 quart
- Difficulty
- Easy
It burns and it lingers. Most table salsas live here.
Ingredients
Makes about 1 quart
- 1 lb jalapeno about 12, sliced into thick rounds
- 1½ cups white vinegar
- 2 medium carrot sliced into coins
- 1 white onion cut into thick wedges
- 6 cloves garlic unpeeled, lightly crushed
- 1½ cups water
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 3 leaves bay leaf
- 1 tsp mexican oregano
- ½ tsp thyme
- 10 peppercorns black pepper
Keeps 2 months refrigerated
Method
- 1
Slice the jalapeños into rounds about ⅓ inch thick — thinner and they go limp. Cut the carrots into coins and the onion into thick wedges.
- 2
Heat the oil in a wide pot over medium-high. Fry the garlic, onion and carrot for 3 minutes, stirring, until the edges catch color.
- 3
Add the jalapeños and fry 2 minutes more. The skins will blister and go dull green. This step is the whole difference between these and the canned kind.
- 4
Add the vinegar, water, salt, sugar, bay, oregano, thyme and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer 5 minutes.
- 5
Take it off the heat while the carrots still have real bite — they keep softening in the hot liquid, and a mushy carrot is the usual failure here.
- 6
Pack into a clean glass jar with all the liquid, making sure everything is submerged. Cool uncovered to room temperature, then refrigerate.
- 7
Wait three days before eating. They are edible immediately and they are not good until day three.
Good with
Tacos of any kind · Tortas · Beans · Anything fried
The jar that sits on the table at every taqueria, and one of the few Mexican preparations that genuinely improves with time. It is also the easiest entry into pickling: no canning equipment, no sterilizing, no processing times.
The one thing that separates a good jar from a dull one is a step most recipes skip.
Fry first, brine second
Nearly every English-language recipe for these has you bring vinegar to a boil and pour it over raw chiles. That is a fast pickle and it tastes like it — sharp, thin, one note.
Escabeche in the Mexican sense starts with frying. The garlic, onion and carrot go into hot oil first and pick up color, then the chiles blister alongside them, and only then does the vinegar arrive.
Those three minutes build a toasted, slightly sweet base underneath the acid. It is the difference between homemade and the can, and it costs almost nothing.
Thick slices, and why
Cut the jalapeños into rounds about a third of an inch thick.
Thin slices seem more convenient but they collapse: the brine gets all the way through in a day and what is left has no crunch. The thick wall of a jalapeño is its whole advantage over other chiles, and slicing it thin throws that away.
Three days, not three hours
They are safe and edible right away, and they are not good yet. Vinegar takes time to penetrate a thick chile wall, and until it does you get a chile with a sour coating rather than a pickle.
Day three is when it comes together. Week one is better. They peak somewhere around two weeks and hold for two months.
Judging the carrots
Carrots are the part that goes wrong. They keep cooking in the hot brine long after the pot leaves the stove, so whatever they feel like when you take them off the heat, they will be softer in the jar.
Pull the pot when the carrots still feel distinctly underdone. If they feel right in the pot, they are already past it.
Keeping it
Sealed glass jar, refrigerated, two months. Everything must stay under the liquid — anything sticking out above the brine will go soft and eventually mold.
Use a clean fork each time rather than fingers. That is what actually determines whether a jar lasts two months or two weeks.
Common questions
Why fry the vegetables instead of just pouring hot brine over them?
Frying caramelizes the sugars in the onion and carrot and blisters the chile skin, which gives the finished pickle a rounder, toasted depth. Pouring brine over raw vegetables gives you a sharp, one-note pickle — which is more or less what the canned ones are. It is five extra minutes and it is the whole point.
How long until they are ready?
Three days minimum, a week is better. The brine has to get through the chile wall, and jalapeños are thick. Straight out of the pot they taste like hot vinegar with chiles in it.
Can I use less vinegar? It smells strong.
Not below the 1:1 ratio with water — the acid is what keeps them for two months. The smell is much stronger hot than the finished pickle tastes cold. If you want them gentler, raise the sugar to two tablespoons rather than cutting the vinegar.
Do I need to sterilize jars and process them?
Not for this. These are refrigerator pickles: they live in the fridge and get eaten within two months. A clean jar washed in hot soapy water is enough. Shelf-stable canning is a different process with different acidity requirements.
My carrots went mushy.
You simmered too long, or left them in the hot pot off the heat. They keep cooking in the residual heat of the liquid. Pull the pot off while they still feel underdone and let them finish as it cools.