Pickled onions

1kg of small pickling onions or shallots, peeled
30g of table salt
1tsp dried chilli flakes
1tsp coriander seeds
1tsp mustard seeds
1tsp black pepper corns
1 bay leaf
1 litre of malt vinegar
1tbsp sea salt

Find a largish bowl, big enough to hold all of the onions and add the table salt.
Mix it all together well then cover and leave overnight.
Next day, rinse off the onions in cold water and then allow them to dry as much as you can.
Divide your onions up between some pre-sterilised jars.
Place the whole spices, coriander, mustard and peppercorns in a mortar and pestle and just crack some of them gently with a few presses of the pestle.
Separately place the vinegar, spices and sea salt in a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the salt. Simmer with a lid tightly on for 5 minutes.
Remove the bay leaf and pour the vinegar into a sterile measuring jug through a clean sieve. Retain the contents of the sieve!
Top up each of the jars with the vinegar solution and apportion the spices from the sieve evenly into each jar before sealing tightly and storing away somewhere cool and dark.
It’s best to leave them alone for at least two weeks before tucking in.