By pickling, you can not only preserve parts of your nasturtium but also create very special delicacies. You don’t need any extraordinary skills or special equipment for this. Normal kitchen equipment and average cooking skills are completely sufficient.
Which parts of the nasturtium can you pickle?
In principle, you can pickle all parts of the nasturtium above ground, but the leaves are rarely used for this. If you mix the dried and crushed leaves with an equal amount of salt, you get a very flavorful herbal salt.
You can make a caper substitute from the buds and seeds. The flowers are ideal for pickling in vinegar or oil.
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To make a flower vinegar, put a few flowers of your nasturtium in a wide-necked bottle and fill it up with a mild vinegar until the vinegar completely covers the flowers. Put the bottle in a dark place and shake your vinegar once a day. After four weeks it is ready and can be strained.
To make oil, again put clean flowers in a wide-necked bottle and this time add tasteless vegetable oil. Use good quality canola or sunflower oil. It must completely cover the blossoms so that they do not become moldy. In contrast to vinegar, however, the oil draws in a bright place, but it is also shaken daily.
How to make your own caper substitute
Caper substitutes used to be made from nasturtium only for economic reasons.
You can use both the unopened buds and the unripe seeds of the nasturtium for the production. Both are boiled in a broth of water, vinegar, and salt and filled into a screw-top jar while still hot. Close this jar tightly immediately and your fake capers will keep for a few months.
Insertion tips for false capers:
- use unopened buds or immature seeds
- Boil in a broth of water, vinegar, and salt
- fill hot
- close tightly immediately
Tips
With a self-made flower vinegar, you can season salads excellently or give loved ones an extraordinary gift.
