Vinegar Pickles, Master Recipe

• 1 cup water, piping hot from the tap
• 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons Kosher salt
• Fruit or vegetable, prepared as indicated
• Apples: 3 firm-fleshed apples, peeled, cored & sliced 1/4" thick. Ready to eat after an hour and should be eaten the day they are made
• Melon: flesh of 1 cantaloupe or baby watermelon, cut into single bite pieces. Cool the brine before pouring over fruit. Ready in 1 hour - eat within 24.
• Carrots: 2 lbs baby carrots (as in infant or dwarfed, not the bagged grocery variety)
• Cauliflower: Florets from 1 head separated into bite size pieces
• Cherries: Pit & halve 2 pints cherries. Reserve the pits. Crack the pits and wrap in cheesecloth. Omitt the salt from the brine: combine the water, vinegar, sugar & pits and boil before pouring over cherries.
• Chiles: 4 cup Thai bird's eye chiles. Slice them after they've been pickled.
• Napa cabbage: Remove the green outer leaves & discard. Use the next couple of layers- 16 to 20 leaves - for this pickle. Make a triangular incision into each of the cabbage leaves to cut out the large, though white rib & discard it. Combine the water, vinegar, sugar and salt in a pickling container, stir until the sugar dissolves & gently pack the leaves into the container. Cover & refrigerate.

1. ombine the water, vinegar, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves.
2. 2. Prepare vegetables or fruit and place in a quart container. Pour brine over the fruit or vegetable and refrigerate. You can eat immediately, but they will taste better after they've had time to sit - 3 to 4 days at a minimum, a week for optimum flavor. Most of these pickles will keep for at least a month, except where noted.

water, rice wine vinegar, sugar, kosher salt, vegetable, apples, carrots, cauliflower, cherries, been, cabbage

Taken from www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/vinegar-pickles-master-recipe-50165662 (may not work)