Turkish Food - Fethiye Pickles; My Recipe

Pickles shouldn't be in the Turkish food section really - many countries, including Britain, are well-known pickle lovers - but they are a Turkish food for me because they are just a fact of life in Turkey. You eat pickles with your food.

You can buy them in jars from the supermarkets just like you can in Britain but these are not real pickles. The pickling companies manage to do something to the vinegar to stop it tasting like vinegar and the jars are titchy, like jam jars. These are absolutely no use whatsoever to the seasoned Turkish pickle eater - and the many foreigners who come here and end up addicted to pickle eating. If you read this blog regularly, you'll know we're serious pickle lovers so we're in our element here. No gözleme, kebab or fish butty is complete without a plate of pickles.

Making your own pickles in Turkey is easy for two reasons. The first one is that veg is so cheap here - because it is available in huge quantities - you can buy extra to make your pickles with. As there's only two of us, pickle-making means we don't have to throw uneaten veg away. (Maybe that's one of the reasons why it's so popular in Turkey? Who knows...) The other reason is that because pickle making is just what's done here, you buy tubs (like the one in the photo) from the market or high street shops for next to nothing. Ours was 1 lira. It holds about 1.5 litres and it's the smallest one you can get. They get pretty huge - at least 5 litres. Now, we like pickles, but 5 litres is taking it a bit far for us.

Anyway, since moving here I've learned that just about any vegetable can be pickled. I always used to love my grandad's pickled onions as a kid. No leaving them to stand or anything. He used to slice a couple of onions up into half moons, put them into a dessert dish, sprinkle a bit of pepper on top and half a teaspoon of sugar and then cover them in malt vinegar and leave them overnight with a saucer on top. Absolutely lovely with Lancashire cheese on a sandwich!

When I make pickles now, it always reminds me of my grandad's so I sprinkle black pepper and half a teaspoon of sugar into mine...just because. Never tried them without so I don't know what it does to the flavour. I presume the sugar takes some of the tang from the vinegar.

The photo is of the pickles I made last night. We are heavily influenced by the pickles you see on the gözleme stalls on Fethiye and Çalış markets.

• 3 meaty carrots, peeled and sliced at an angle for more surface area (and therefore more pickled loveliness!)
• 3 large (for Turkish standards) cucumbers quartered and then sliced in half down the middle.
• 3 small onions (or one big one) peeled and chopped into bite-sized chunks.
• 5 green chillies, pricked and boiled for a few minutes in about a tea glass of water (quarter of a mug). Don't throw the water away.

Layer your ingredients into your tub or jar however you want to. It's not too important. Sprinkle half a teaspoon of sugar in, a good pinch of black pepper and a little chilli powder (optional). Add the water from the pan (this will have taken on a little of the chilli hotness) and then top your tub up with vinegar. Screw the lid on, give them a good shake and stick them in the fridge (you might not need the fridge but it gets so hot here that even the pickles are better off in the fridge!) for two weeks. After that, you can eat them all up. It usually take us about two days to polish them off. And I've got to admit, we never leave them for two weeks - well, they're just looking at you every time you open the fridge. About one and a half weeks and they're good to go, if a little crunchy!

*The standard vinegar in Turkey is grape vinegar and it isn't too overpowering so I find it's fine for pickling if the glass of water is added. No need to buy extra pickling vinegar. I've asked at some of the places that serve pickles too and they use the grape vinegar. If you're not sure how suitable the vinegar is in your country for pickling, get pickling vinegar.

*You might have also noticed there is parsley in the pickle tub in the photo. We've had parsley and celery leaves in our pickles on the gözleme stalls recently and it really holds its flavour. We had some parsley in the fridge that needed eating so I stuck it in the vinegar before I put the lid on just to experiment. I'll let you know.