When it's summertime and vegetables are plentiful, Azerbaijani women are busy pickling - not just cucumbers, but many other kinds of vegetables, including eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots, cabbage, cauliflower and beets. Fruits like plums, sour cherries, apples and quince may also also pickled. Pickling ensures that the family will have enough vegetables for the winter.

Pickles and relishes are served with every meal, especially during the winter. There are two types: ones made with vinegar, and others made with brine. Each type of pickle is flavored with various herbs, such as mint, parsley, dill and cilantro. The pickled eggplant pictured here is stuffed with garlic, mint and chile pepper.

Pickled Stuffed Pepper
Sweet peppers - 10 g; garlic - 120 g; parsley - 150 g; mint -100 g; red pepper - 150 g; salt - 20 g; grape vinegar - 500 g.

 Select medium-size peppers, cut off the tops 0.5 cm deep and remove the seeds. Parboil the peppers in salted boiling water for 1-2 minutes, stuff with a mixture of garlic, greens and red pepper and cover with the cutoff top. Pack the stuffed peppers in rows in a glass jar, sprinkling each row with salt, and pour in grape vinegar. Close the jar and leave in a cold place until ready.

Pickled tomatoes with egg-plants
Peel egg-plants, split lengthwise, sprinkle with salt and leave for 3-4 hours to eliminate the bitter taste. Wash the egg-plants and fill with chopped dills, parsley and mint.

 Put three bay leaves, ten grains of black pepper and 2-3 cloves of garlic on the bottom of a three-litre jar. Fill half of the jar with strong greenish red tomatoes and put the prepared egg-plants on top. Pour in the pickle containing 4% of sugar, 4% of salt and 1.8-2.0% of vinegar essence.

Sterilize the three-litre jars filled with the pickle in boiling water for 30-35 minutes, counting from the beginning of boiling.

Pickled garlic
Garlic - 1 kg; grape vinegar - 400 g; black pepper - 10 grains; clove - 5 buds; bay leaves - 4.

Garlic is pickled either whole or peeled. To pickle it whole, keep it in salted water (50 g of salt per litre of water) for 5-6 days. Pack the garlic into a clean jar and pour grape vinegar over it. Close the jar tightly and leave in a cold place for 25-30 days.

Pack peeled and washed cloves of garlic into a jar without pre-treatment, sprinkle with salt (20 g of salt per 1 kg of garlic) and pour in grape vinegar.