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Vegetables from Çubuk district and its villages

Çubuk turşusu (Çubuk brine pickles)Çubuk turşusu

Çubuk turşusu is a protected pickle from the Çubuk plateau near Ankara. Young, firm vegetables are packed into tins or barrels under a brine of 8.4 % salt and a little vinegar, with dill, bay leaf, garlic and hot pepper, sealed airtight and left at room temperature for about 20 to 35 days while lactic acid bacteria sour them.

Fully documentedVegetables20 days – 35 daysTurkish geographical indication (mahreç işareti) no. 99, registered 2008

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe registration's recipe for mixed pickle (türlü turşu), 19 kg in total. Pepper pickles use 6.5 kg of peppers to 12.2 kg of brine.
Vegetables (cucumber, dolma kelek, cabbage, carrot, tomato, pepper, beans, acur and so on)11 kg57.9 % of the 19 kg total[tp2008]
Brine (filling liquid)7.7 kgWater 89.6 %, salt 8.4 %, vinegar 2.0 % (5 degrees); 40.5 % of the contents[tp2008]
Aromatics (garlic, hot pepper, dill, bay leaf)0.3 kg1.6 % of the contents[tp2008]
Starterspontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 20 days – 35 days

Start
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What changes: Firm young vegetables are graded and washed three times

Step 1 of 4
Sort and wash the vegetables
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Lactobacillus

Dolma kelek is peeled and cored, cabbage loses its outer leaves, and red beet and green beans are trimmed and boiled. Output: clean vegetables graded by size; cucumbers sieved into sizes 0–3.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Çubuk turşusu is a protected pickle from the Çubuk plateau near Ankara. Young, firm vegetables are packed into tins or barrels under a brine of 8.4 % salt and a little vinegar, with dill, bay leaf, garlic and hot pepper, sealed airtight and left at room temperature for about 20 to 35 days while lactic acid bacteria sour them. Made in 4 steps over 20 days – 35 days. The longest step, ferment at room temperature, takes 20–35 days (TÜRKPATENT 2008). Salt is 8.4 % (TÜRKPATENT 2008). Lactobacillus brevis, L. acidophilus and L. plantarum and Pediococcus ethanolidurans, Lactobacillus brevis, L. plantarum and L. buchneri do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step20–35 daysSet[tp2008]Ferment at room temperature
Salt8.4 %Set[tp2008]Pack into tins or barrels and fill with brine

What makes this one different

Unlike plain salt-brine pickles, the registration sets a little vinegar in the brine and makes bay leaf and dill the defining flavours, and says it is made without any foreign chemical additive, although its recipe tables list citric acid (E 330) at 0.001 % in the cabbage and aubergine pickle brines and 0.01 % in the pepper pickle brine, and acetic acid (E 260) in the pepper pickle brine.

Related ferments

Variants

  • Single-vegetable Çubuk picklesTomato, cabbage, beet, dolma kelek, aubergine, bean, cucumber, pepper and biberiye pickles each have their own recipe in the registration; pepper and biberiye use more brine (12.2 kg to 6.5 kg of vegetable).
  • Ezme turşusuCrushed tomato, 8 kg to 2 kg of brine.

Safety

The registration packs the vegetables under a brine of 8.4 % salt and 2.0 % vinegar (5 degrees) in tins or barrels closed so tightly that no air can get in, and gives the pickle a maximum shelf life of 2 years [tp2008].

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Registered by Çubuk Municipality as a geographical indication (application C2006/003, registered 26 August 2008, amended 2019). The registration cites about 50 years of local tradition, and a festival that drew 160,000 visitors in 2005.

  1. [tp2008] TÜRKPATENT, Çubuk Turşusu, geographical indication no. 99 (mahreç işareti), registered by Çubuk Belediyesi, 26.08.2008, amendment published in Bulletin 54, 10.06.2019spec
  2. [dursun2010] Dursun D. 2010, Ankara Çubuk yöresi turşularından izole edilen laktik asit bakterilerinin tanımlanması ve toplam hücre protein profillerinin belirlenmesi, MSc thesis, Ankara University (abstract; 14 spontaneously fermented pickles, 174 isolates)paper
  3. [elmaci2015] Bağder Elmacı S., Tokatlı M., Dursun D., Özçelik F., Şanlıbaba P. 2015, Phenotypic and genotypic identification of lactic acid bacteria isolated from traditional pickles of the Çubuk region in Turkey, Folia Microbiologica 60(3):241–251 (abstract)paper