Recipe details Researched, Taste-Tested, and Survived by Miss Ceejay Writer. This recipe was entered in the Iron Bay Chef contest at the 2012 New Babbage Air Kraken Festival, where it won Third Place!
Often New Babbagers will get pickled after a good Air Kraken hunt. Here's a variation in which the Air Kraken gets pickled... not to say that New Babbagers won't as well, but at least in the case of this recipe, you'll wake up with both a hangover AND jars of food for the winter months!
CRACKIN' GOOD PICKLED AIR KRAKEN
You'll need about ten pounds of Kraken pieces. Often just hanging around the docks during the annual Air Kraken festival will yield up what you need. Show up with a bucket and tongs and ignore the expressions on everyones faces as you collect the best leftover bits after the big ships unload their Kraken Kargo.. er Cargo.
Drag the bucket back home and dump it in the kitchen sink. Mind the aroma: step back immediately and let your main ingredient 'breathe'. You may notice family pets and elderly in-laws fleeing the premises now. This is an added bonus, allowing you peace and quiet for the afternoon.
When you can bear to approach the sink, rub down all the bits with coarse sea salt to de-slime them. Cut any larger chunks down so all the Kraken is in similar bite size pieces. Throw them all in a sturdy colander and pour boiling water over to rinse and blanch. By now all your downwind neighbors should be blanching, too.
Rinse out the BIGGEST glass jar you can find. You want one big enough to hold all the kraken bits. Scoop them out of the colander and into the jar. Now comes the fun (and infinitely less messy) part:
Add to the jar:
A half cup of hot sauce.
Two big handfuls of little pearl onions
A pinch of salt, followed by a cup of salt.
A pint of whole black peppercorns
A dozen cloves of garlic
A cup of standard pickle spicings.
A gallon of good pungent cider vinegar
Stir the entire mess together, top off with more vinegar and a couple drops of a good industrial oil at the top to help the lid seal.
Now, stuff the jar in the back of the pantry, where it will wait to charm and delight your wintertime dinner guests!
