STERILIZE JARS AND LIDSWash all jars and lids with warm soapy water. Boil lids in a medium pot for 4-5 minutes; carefully paper towel dry lids. Preheat oven to 215°F and place jars upside down onto oven racks and dry for 20 minutes or until completely dry (20 mins was always enough for me).
Weigh out all your ingredients. Wash all vegetables and fruits (except onions and carrots). Cube 2 lbs tomatoes into 1” pieces, slice 1.5 lbs cucumbers onto benriner mandolin about 2-3 mm thickness and then thinly shred 1 lb green cabbage. Peel, wash and grate 1 lb carrots onto a big hole and cut 1 lb onions into half and slice into 2-3 mm thickness strips. Peel, core and grate 1 large granny smith apple onto a big hole. Now for the 3 beautiful peppers, take out the mushy interior stuff, slice peppers into half vertically and half horizontally. You can manually slice them into 2-3 mm thickness strips OR (like me) use Benriner Mandolin (I think it’s faster – at least it seems that way to me :) ).
Next, I usually start with tomatoes on the bottom as they are the juicy ones and work my way up, doesn’t matter what order as you’re going to stir it all together anyway. Transfer cubed tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, grated carrots, shredded green cabbage, sliced onions, grated apple and 3 sliced peppers into a large (at least 10 gallon) pot.
TO MAKE THE MARINADE: In a medium bowl, combine and stir together 1/2 cup grapeseed oil (canola and vegetable are fine too), 2 tbsps sugar, 2 tbsps distilled white vinegar, 1 1/2 tbsps salt and 9- 10 black peppercorns. Pour the marinade over the salad. Gently, but as thorough as you can, stir everything with spatula.
Turn heat to low (3-4) and let it cook until you start seeing little bubbles. Let it bubble/boil for 10 minutes, then taste for salt and sugar. If it needs more, add then check again 1-2 mins later. (You want it strong so that it tastes strong once you open the jars to eat either next day, a week or month from now on).
Carefully (as it’s hot) spoon the salad (including juices) into jars fully to the top leaving about 1/2" unfilled. Close lids tightly. Cover filled jars with towels until cooled. It’s best enjoyable when it’s out of fridge, cold. Place a jar into fridge before opening and enjoy with any meal!!
(Store the salad in cool place such as garage. It doesn’t need to be in fridge all the time.)
Notes
Salt: When it comes to marinating this salad, it’s sometimes impossible to get it right every time. In here I’m using tomatoes from my garden that are sweet and full of flavor comparing to store tomatoes. If using store-bough tomatoes, adjust salt and sugar to taste as they will most likely need more. This is why I’d recommend maybe mixing a bit less of salt and sugar in the marinade process at first and after 10 minutes of boiling the salad, taste and see if it needs more. This salad is suppose to be salty, sweet and sour. I made it 3 times in 2 days and ended up with a bit of difference in salt and sugar every time, but I provided the best, the closest in this recipe.