Giardiniera is the best way to preserve vegetables all year round so that they can be enjoyed intact with all their taste and flavor even when they are no longer in season. Preserving vegetables in vinegar is one of the oldest methods to keep the aroma of each ingredient intact, something that has recently become fashionable again!
To get a less pungent and more delicate flavor, which may also please children, the sweet and sour giardiniera is prepared by adding sugar to vinegar. Once ready, you can use your giardiniera as an appetizer, to be served on warm bread croutons, or accompanying a lovely plate of mixed cold cuts or even with fish. If you are nostalgic for cold dishes such as rice salad, the homemade giardiniera is a perfect condiment.
Spices and herbs for that extra touch
To enrich the taste of sweet-and-sour giardiniera, you can add spices or aromatic herbs to the water, vinegar and sugar mixture, which will give your appetizer a fuller flavor. They go marvelously with nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon as well as fragrant herbs such as basil, parsley, thyme, laurel, and fennel. You can choose to add fresh herbs (if you have them), or even dry ones: they will have a more intense fragrance and aroma, so reduce the quantity.
The sweet and sour giardiniera recipe
Ingredients:
2 lb mixed vegetables including zucchini, peppers, onions, carrots and celery
½ cup white wine vinegar
4 tbsp olive oil
½ cup brown sugar
2 cloves
some juniper berries
1 cinnamon stick
1 bay leaf
a pinch of salt
Method:
Wash the onions, trim the zucchini, wash them and cut them into chunks.
Peel the carrots and celery and slice them into strips, clean the peppers, removing the seeds and white parts, wash them and cut them into small pieces.
Bring the extra-virgin olive oil with vinegar, sugar, juniper berries, cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves and salt to the boil in a pot.
Add the onions, celery, and carrots and simmer for four minutes.
Then add the rest of the vegetables and leave to cook for three more minutes, until they are cooked but still crunchy.
Remove from the heat, drain them with a skimmer and pour them into jars that you have previously sterilized.
Fill up to 1 cm from the edge with their cooking liquid, close the jars, turn them upside down and let them cool in this position, to be air-tight.
Once cold, check that the vacuum has formed (the lid must do the usual click-clack) and let your giardiniera rest in the sweet and sour for a few weeks before consuming it.
Browse the photo gallery for a few more tips for a perfect giardiniera!