Atlanta Restaurants & Food

Ask a Cook: Can old brine make new pickles?

By Kathleen Purvis
Aug 5, 2014

Q: My daughter and I bought some tasty pickled okra. We ate it quickly, but there is a lot of liquid left in the jar. Can I add our home-grown okra to the jar to get pickled okra? How long would it take to pickle?

A: I turned this question over to Andrea Weigl, the food editor at The (Raleigh) News & Observer and the author of "Pickles: A Savor the South Cookbook" (UNC Press, 2014).

That’s a great thing to do as long as you keep it refrigerated, she says.

“Feel free to add your okra to that leftover brine to make a refrigerator pickled okra. I would let them sit a week before sampling them. I bet they will be best closer to a month.”

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Kathleen Purvis

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