Summer and autumn preparations are the guarantee that winter feasts and friendly family dinners will be the most delicious and healthy. It is not for nothing that our ancestors tried in the summer to prepare more supplies for the winter: pickle mushrooms and cabbage, cucumbers and tomatoes, boil preserves, dry mushrooms and berries. Some traditions and recipes are a thing of the past, but in each family, home-made pickles like cabbage have a special love. It is harvested today in many ways, the most unusual of which are given in the review below.
Selection and preparation of ingredients
For pickling, it is recommended to take varieties of white cabbage. The ideal vegetable for harvesting has a slightly flattened shape, a white or white-green hue, should be dense, even hard, so that such a head does not work to be pressed or crushed. When shredding, smooth, dense petals are obtained, which, when compressed, release a large amount of juice. Recommended varieties of vegetables for homemade products: Kharkov winter, Mid-season white, Turkiz, Belorusskaya, Menza.
Important! You can cook spicy and sweet and sour cabbage without salt. To do this, simply pour the chopped vegetable with clean water and put under oppression. The process of fermentation in bulk goes the same way as with the addition of salt.
Having chosen a vegetable of one sort or another, it should be washed and chopped. It will be ideal to grind the product with a special shredder, but you can simply chop it finely with an ordinary knife. The container for pickling must certainly be glass or enameled. You can not use aluminum or Teflon dishes, as well as plastic - this can make the taste and smell of the finished product seriously change, and not for the better.
Sauerkraut recipes for the winter
There are many recipes for sauerkraut. We bring to your attention several interesting and even unusual recipes with pumpkin, cranberries and orange.
With pumpkin
51–2 hours
Energy value per 100 g:
Instructions for making sauce with paprika and garlic:
- Peppers are cleaned from cores, tails, cut.
- Garlic is peeled by slicing.
- In a blender or meat grinder, grind all the ingredients, put them in a glass dish, add sugar and salt.
- Put in heat for fermentation for 2-3 days (without access of light).
- The resulting sauce is stored in a glass container in a refrigerator or a cool cellar.
Instructions for preparing sauerkraut stew with pumpkin:
The head of the vegetable is finely chopped. The pumpkin is peeled, rubbed on a coarse grater.
Sprinkle the cabbage with salt and carefully mash for 5–10 minutes.
Sugar, grated pumpkin and sauce with paprika and garlic are added.
Mix, cover, crush on top with oppression, leave in a warm place without access to sunlight.
Every day, a fermenting vegetable mass is pierced with a toothpick so that the air accumulated as a result of fermentation is released.
After 2-3 days, they taste the product, and if you like it, put the ready-made sauerkraut in the refrigerator.
The head of the vegetable is finely chopped. The pumpkin is peeled, rubbed on a coarse grater.
Sprinkle the cabbage with salt and carefully mash for 5–10 minutes.
Sugar, grated pumpkin and sauce with paprika and garlic are added.
Mix, cover, crush on top with oppression, leave in a warm place without access to sunlight.
Every day, a fermenting vegetable mass is pierced with a toothpick so that the air accumulated as a result of fermentation is released.
After 2-3 days, they taste the product, and if you like it, put the ready-made sauerkraut in the refrigerator.Video recipe
With pumpkin Recipe: With pumpkin
You can also make sauerkraut without adding sauce. Then the taste of the product will be more tender, without pungency. If desired, you can add a fresh apple to the workpiece (just before serving). Mistresses with experience do not recommend adding water to vegetables for pickling, as it slows down the fermentation process and reduces the sharpness and brightness of the taste.
Ready-made pickles are served as snacks or as an addition to hot dishes. Season the pickled product with vegetable oil. Sometimes bay leaves and peppercorns are put in pickles, but based on the experience of the hostesses, it is better to take out such spices after one or two days of fermenting the cabbage, since too saturated spices can “overflow” and give the dish bitterness instead of a delicate aroma.
Did you know? Sauerkraut, according to popular beliefs, is recommended on the growing moon. In the process of cooking, it is forbidden to quarrel with family, swear or use swear words. Then the workpiece will surely turn out tasty and healthy.
With cranberries and pumpkin
51–2 hours
Energy value per 100 g:
- Cabbage finely chopped.
- Cranberries are washed, reclined on a sieve or colander to glass water.
- The pumpkin is peeled, rubbed on a coarse grater.
- Sprinkle the prepared mixture with salt and carefully mash for 5-10 minutes.
- Sugar and grated pumpkin are added, then cranberries.
- Mix, cover, crush on top with oppression, leave in a warm place without access to sunlight.
- They pierce the mass with a toothpick to remove air, remove the resulting foam.
- After 2-3 days, they taste the product. Store the workpiece in the refrigerator, in an enamel or glass dish.
Important! Do not add ingredients “by eye”, use the exact rules of seasonings and spices. Then the final dish will be really delicious.
With orange and pumpkin
51 hour
White cabbage
1 kg
Energy value per 100 g:
- The head of the vegetable is finely chopped.
- Add salt, mint.
- Orange is poured with boiling water and finely chopped together with the peel into cubes, added to the cabbage.
- Cut the pumpkin into cubes, add to the cabbage and orange.
- Marinade is cooked by mixing sugar, salt, vinegar and water.
- The boiled marinade is poured into the chopped mixture.
- Leave the product to boil for 2 days in a warm place (without access to light).
- After this period, the finished pickled dish is cleaned in the refrigerator.
Features of storage of blanks
Sauerkraut by any means is stored either in the refrigerator or in the basement / cellar at a fairly low temperature (+2 ... + 5 ° C). Shelf life can reach 2-3 months, and with proper preparation, the product can be stored from autumn to early spring.
An ideal way to preserve the freshness and crisp texture of the product is to keep it in the cold in small sterile glass jars with a screw cap.
So, in order to cook a really healthy pickle, you do not need to have much culinary experience. Enough of a simple desire to please your home with a delicious dish of available vegetables. And spicy additives in the form of orange, apple, cranberry, pumpkin and sauces will make the workpiece even tastier.
