Quick Pickled Tarragon Balsamic Blackberries

We love to quick pickle things.  Eventually we’d really love to spend the time learning how to can foods so that we can enjoy all these beautiful summer veggies year round…but for now we cannot invest the time in the process of proper canning.  (And plus…we don’t have a garden, as our landscape is pretty bare at this new house, so we’ve got some work to do out there to make that little dream come true). So quick pickles will have to do.  And they do.  We tend to do them with all sorts of things.  Blackberries were one thing we had not yet tried- or any fruit for that matter- so we were ready to give it a go.

We started by boiling 3 cups of balsamic vinegar (you can use white or dark), 1 cup of sugar, 2 cloves and a handful of freshly picked tarragon.  Once boiling we reduced the heat and let simmer for ten minutes.  This mixture was chilled overnight.  The liquid was strained and reserved and then brought to a boil with a cup of honey.  When warm but not too hot, it was poured over the blackberries and extra tarragon which had been carefully placed into little glass canning jars.  The lids were screwed on and the jars were allowed to cool to room temperature before we put them in the fridge where they will keep for about two weeks.

We decided to drizzle the finished product on top of ice-cream but we’ll be honest…since there are some left we might even go so far as to bake a cheesecake or make ice-cream and fold them in.  The tart berry and the sweet balsamic are a great combination.  The tarragon adds a licorice flavor that is unexpected and a little bit grown up.  The only thing we would do differently next time is to slice the berry in half.  Blackberries tend to be a little big and we would prefer them halved.  While we served it sweet, we could even see it being used with some sort of poultry.  We’ve got two weeks so we will try a few more things out and let you know how it goes.