Strawberry Rhubarb Bread and Butter Pickles
The pickle you’ve never had, but need.
How did you even come up with a strawberry Rhubarb Bread n butter pickle!?
This may be hard to believe, but one of my all time favorite pickles is a bread n butter. Not the neon yellow, sickeningly sweet ones you may find at the grocery store. My grandma Clara’s bread n butters are what I fell in love with as a child, and what I originally reproduced for Clara’s back in 2013.
When I began canning to sell online, at farmers markets, and pop ups, I was also cooking professionally and had been for almost 10 years. I had the fortune of working with Chef Ralph Johnson at The Spotted Pig NYC and his newly opened Los Angeles Restaurant, The Pikey.
In London Ralph trained with some absolute masters of Indian and Thai style curries. I was able to glean a lot of incredible methods to building curry from scratch with whole ingredients, not just powdered premixes we are naturally accustomed to here in the US. He taught me to pound the ginger and turmeric roots with garlic, or slice ginger into very fine strands depending on the curry. He showed me how much flavor and texture come from cilantro stems, how important setting up all of the ingredients from the dry but fresh spices, fragrant roots, and herbs so they can go into the pan at the exact right time in the right order.
Later, as I was making my bread and butter pickles, as I always had, not deviating from the recipe, I realized something.
Turmeric, mustard seed, and black peppercorns are three of the four quintessential spices in these pickles, they also happen to be central to many curries. So what is preventing me from leaning into this? What happens if I do? What happens if I start swapping out the cucumbers for other fruits and veggies?
During the experimental phase, I had some strawberry and rhubarb with no real destination in mind so I decided, why not a bread n butter pickle? And boom, it was on. They were punchy, flavorful, and so very different from anything I had ever tried before. I absolutely love them on a crostini or cracker with a goat cheese schmear. They pair excellently with sliced charcuterie, cheeses, and fresh sourdough breads on a nice board.
Strawberry Rhubarb Bread n Butter Pickles on a goat cheese crostini with edible flowers. These pickles end up such a gorgeous color, making it fun to play with garnishes.
And that right there was the birth of my very own style of bread n butters. Adjusting the sugar a bit to not be quite as sweet, using raw cane sugar to lend excellent flavor with its natural minerals, adding all the standard spices that make up a bread n butter like yellow mustard seed, turmeric, black peppercorns, and celery seed but pushing it further by adding more spices, more of the fragrant roots, and more fresh herbs like cilantro.
The result is something I am very proud of and know it is quite unique. And if you’d like to try them, the only place they are available is your home kitchen!
Get the full recipe and tutorial on YouTube here
In the years since I started Clara’s, we have made four big moves, had two kids, and started working on our dream of operating a farm that supplies the Clara’s product line. Which means that, for now, I’ve discontinued sales to the public of my own canned goods, but we have also decided to work on the Clara’s YouTube Channel, so you’re in luck.
Not only can you try my beloved recipes, you get to add a few skills to your tool bag along the way.
Because yes, I absolutely cannot wait to build the farm and craft cannery up, but I also really want y’all to have the power to create your own foods at home. There’s nothing more special than a homemade pantry, and if you have littles around, to show them the ways.
If I had any hand in your journey towards more homemade foods that sustain or create traditions in your home, I’ve done my job and that’s all I can really hope for, sale or no sale.
I truly hope you try this recipe and maybe even keep for good to pass down.
All the best,
Chef Ona Lee, Clara’s Canning
And remember, start with the best, end with the best. Make sure to source your ingredients from you own gardens or from local farms whenever possible.