Bob Hobden wrote:
tony wrote

Bob Hobden wrote:
Tony wrote

Jeanne Stockdale wrote:
Our shallots are ready for lifting - I will be pickling them. Should I
leave
them to dry out first or not?

Jeanne Stockdale
I usually dry the mon a slatted table outside if the weather is good or
on a bench ( on newspaper) in my garage if the weather is wet.One to
two weeks is about right.
However drying is not absolutely essential. If the weather is good put
on the marigolds and start peeling. I strongly advocate salting the
shallots for twenty four hours before washing and adding the vinegar
although there was some discussion about this last year.

I've asked this question before but never got a proper answer...Why do
you
salt them and then wash them? ( i.e. add the dreaded salt and then wash
most
of it off with chlorinated tapwater)
We do neither and even two year old pickled shallots are still crisp, so
that's not the reason.
So why do you do this, what's the theory behind it?

I suspect the commercial firms do it to quicken the pickling process but
that's not a valid reason for us to do it, we can simply wait and get
uncontaminated food.

I salt them to keep them crisp when pickled.

Read the above...if you use fresh good onions, good quality vinegar
(Sarsons), and pickling spice ( we add a home grow chilli to each jar too)
then you don't need to salt/wash them.

It's a myth and I don't know how it came about for home pickling.

If it works for you without salting, fine. I am not prepared to take
the chance of losing about twenty to thirty pounds of pickled shallots.
In any case if you wash off the salt how can it hurt you?

Salt is bad for you in the quantities we now consume in the West. Not all of
it will be washed off so you will be raising your salt intake.
All salt does is act as a dessicant, it removes some water from the body of
the onions. This will quicken the pickling process but are you bothered
about that? I'm not, I can wait 3 months or more.
I should think it also softens the onions, quite the reverse of what you
desire.

Try one jar my way and compare after 3 months or more, you too will wonder
why you did the salt treatment.

regards
Bob.
You've answered your own question on why salt.
Yes the salt does remove water from the onions by osmosis and therefore
softens them. This concentrates the liguid in the onion cells so that
the vinegar can add water again by osmosis, thereby resulting in
crunchy onions. The amount of salt left on the onions is surely
dependant upon how thoroughly they are washed.
The west's salt intake is , quite frankly, of no concern to me at all.