In Hungary main meals are often (or rather always) served with pickled vegetables. Cucumber, beet root, water melon, stuffed peppers or csalamádé –  they are all splendid and make any meat dish lively. Mixed vegetable pickle is usually made with finely shredded cabbage, cucumber, pepper, carrot and onion, but green tomatoes can be also an option, so you can enjoy the unripe fruit (and no, green tomatoes are not toxic).

I use only salt, sugar and vinegar to flavour my csalamádé, but if you want, you can add other spices to the mixture. Bay leaf, coriander seeds, black pepper corns and mustar seeds all go well with these vegetables. Preservatives can’t be omitted in this case as the mixture spends 10 days in a bowl in order to merge flavours before you put it into jars.