In the pubs for seven years
Men have given him their ears
Buying the essence of his heart
With a porter-perfumed fart

Bank holiday Patrick Kavanagh

Pickles are totally my thing. I love them, in fact I love any method of cooking without heat. Now, obviously this recipe below does require some heat, but there is pickling too, so I love it.

Pickling like fermentation (I’ll get on to that) is a means of preservation of food. In pickling the food is stored in an acidic medium, which prevents the growth of microbes. This particular pickle is unusual as we are aiming for a slightly soft texture, so we can use regular salt in the recipe. In pickles where texture is important it is advisable to use sea-salt. The calcium and magnesium in the salt helps to ensure a crunchy texture, by cross-linking proteins in the flesh.

This particular pickle has a wonderful (almost Christmassy) spiciness to it - like a mulled pickle. The sweet soft flesh of the squash is offset by the sharpness of the vinegar and the cloves and porter give a full-mouth spice sensation. It goes extremely well with hard cheeses and smoked meats and fish.

1 medium butternut squash
2 teaspoons of salt
2 cups cider vinegar
2 cups porter
1 cup sugar
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
3 Birdseye chillies

• Sterilise a large jar (link how to)
• Peel and chop the butternut squash into 1 cm cubes
• Put the vinegar, porter, salt and sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil
• Put the remaining herbs and spices into an empty tea bag (like so), to make a boquet-garni

• When the saucepan is boiling lower the heat to simmering and add the boquet-garni and the squash
• Boil the mixture for 20 minutes
• Pour the squash and pickle into the glass jar
• Seal and wait for at least two weeks