Dense and crispy pickled cucumbers. They are good on their own and are great for making salads. Especially if you were cooked yourself. But unfortunately, not every housewife can boast the ability to harvest delicious cucumbers for the winter. In fact, it is not as difficult as it might seem initially. You only need to choose the right vegetables and observe all the necessary proportions when canning. Yes, and every cook has a favorite recipe for cucumbers for the winter. Let's look at the most interesting of them. We also talk about some of the subtleties, without which it is impossible to get perfect cucumbers for the winter.
Pick cucumbers
Not all cucumbers are suitable for canning. The ability to choose them correctly provides half the successful salting. Sometimes even the most beautiful cucumber will not be pleasant to crunch and have a taste that is loved by everyone.
So, how to choose cucumbers for the winter. The variety of this vegetable is very important. Today, specimens specially bred for canning are sold in the markets. For example, very popular varieties are Murashka, Liliput, Nezhenka, Parisian gherkin and many other more or less well-known. They are distinguished by their dense structure and size.
The size of the vegetable is also of no small importance. It is best to take short-fruited cucumbers for salting for the winter. That is, their length should not be more than 10-12 centimeters.
Overripe cucumbers will not be tasty after salting. Both for canning, and generally for food in fresh form, it is better to take them a little immature. The color of the peel will help determine the degree of maturity. It should be a juicy green color, without a single hint of yellowness. In addition, cucumbers for the winter should be fresh, as if they had just been plucked from the garden. The fetus itself must be resilient and dense, and its skin should pierce easily even when pressed with a fingernail.
Sometimes cucumbers taste bitter. It is worth considering that with canning, bitterness will not go anywhere. Therefore, it is better to refuse salting of such vegetables.
Subject to these simple rules for choosing vegetables, your cucumbers for the winter will always be delicious and crispy.
We prepare cans
After the pickles have been selected, it is very important to prepare the cans. They also affect the quality of future pickles.
At first, it is worthwhile to carefully examine the surface of the can, both external and internal. It should not have any cracks and chips.
It is important to rinse the jars very well with hot water. The most severe contaminants are easy to remove with ordinary baking soda. After they must be rinsed several times, and allow excess water to drain.
After the banks are completely dry, you can proceed to sterilize them. You can handle cans with hot steam. To do this, pour water into a large pot and put it on fire. We put a sieve, a colander or a metal circle specially designed for sterilization on top. On them and put the banks upside down. Steaming cans is worth ten minutes. Large two and three liter - fifteen.
There is an easier way to sterilize in the oven. To do this, put the cans on a wire rack, it is in every oven, with its neck down. Set the temperature to 150-160 degrees and turn on the oven. After it heats up, we sterilize the jars for fifteen minutes.
Metal lids are enough to boil for three to five minutes.
Pickling Methods
A special role in pickling pickles for the winter is marinade. Without it, it is impossible to get an excellent result. Basically, most housewives take the classic version of the marinade as a basis. And already in it add herbs and spices to your taste. Which makes their cucumbers for the winter different from others. The classic pickle for cucumbers looks like this:
- Products are taken per one liter of cold water.
- Two tablespoons with a small slide of salt.
- Three tablespoons of granulated sugar.
- About one hundred grams of nine percent vinegar.
Cucumbers for the winter in jars can be pickled in three main ways. The most popular is the hot fill method. With him, cucumbers laid in a jar are poured with hot marinade without vinegar from one to three times. Vinegar is added at the last pour.
With the cold method, the marinade is simply poured into cans and immediately rolled up. Banks are not subject to heat treatment.
Also, the contents of the jar are often subjected to sterilization.
Cucumbers for the winter with vinegar
Vinegar is the most popular preservative. It is difficult to imagine blanks for the winter without its use. And since cucumbers love everything, the best solution would be to pickle them in jars of three liters.
So, for one such jar, we need:
- About two kilograms of small cucumbers.
- Three to four cloves of garlic.
- Hot pepper pod.
- Peppercorns, bay leaf.
- Sprig with dill umbrella.
- Two to three sheets of horseradish.
If desired, you can add leaves of cherry, currant or raspberry.
For marinade per liter of water:
- A tablespoon of granulated sugar.
- Two incomplete tablespoons of salt.
- Three tablespoons of nine percent vinegar.
Step cooking
In a well-washed and sterilized jar we place horseradish leaves, dill, and the rest of the greens. Add peas, garlic and chopped hot pepper. Then tightly lay the well-washed cucumbers with trimmed edges. Caution, so as not to crack the bank, fill the water. Leave for ten to fifteen minutes.
After carefully pour the water back into the pan and put all the ingredients except vinegar. We bring to a boil and again pour our cucumbers with the resulting marinade. Pour the vinegar and roll the cans.
Turn them lid down and wrap them in a warm blanket. After the contents of the cans have completely cooled, they can be stored in a cool place. Using this recipe, you will get crisp cucumbers for the winter that absolutely everyone will like.
No vinegar
For those who have stomach problems and cannot use vinegar, we offer a recipe for cucumbers for the winter without it. For this we need:
- Small in size cucumbers.
- Three cloves of garlic.
- Peppercorns
- Dill, horseradish leaves, parsley.
Ingredients for marinade per liter of water:
- One glass of redcurrant juice.
- Two tablespoons of salt.
- A tablespoon of granulated sugar.
All the necessary ingredients for the marinade must be boiled and pour them cucumbers, with herbs in jars.
Mustard Cucumbers
Very tasty cucumbers for the winter are obtained according to this recipe. They are prepared quickly and do not require additional sterilization. To prepare mustard marinade, we need one three-liter jar:
- About 1.5 liters of water.
- Two tablespoons of salt.
- One tablespoon of granulated sugar.
- One to two tablespoons of dry mustard powder.
All the above ingredients are placed in a pan and bring to a boil. Pour cucumbers tightly placed in jars with this solution. We cover them with nylon covers and put them away in a cold dark place for about two months. After this period, the product fully reveals its taste and is ready for use.
According to this recipe, pickled cucumbers for the winter are aromatic and mouth-watering. And mustard powder is an excellent antiseptic that prevents the formation of mold.
Korean cucumbers
A very tasty and unusual cucumber salad for the winter can be obtained using this simple but interesting recipe. It looks beautiful in a bank, it can be put on a festive table. Believe me, no matter how many cans of this salad you make, they will all be eaten before spring. In addition, for this winter harvesting, you can use the so-called illiquid. That is, overgrown or crooked cucumbers that you can’t put in a jar.
Essential Ingredients
To prepare this original and bright winter salad, we need:
- About two kilograms of cucumbers.
- Seven hundred to eight hundred grams of carrots.
- Two medium heads of garlic.
Particular attention is paid to the marinade. For him, we will need to prepare such products:
- One hundred milliliters of nine percent vinegar.
- Half a glass of flavourless vegetable oil.
- One and a half tablespoon of table salt.
- One hundred grams of granulated sugar.
- Korean carrot seasoning packaging weighing at least 20 grams.
How to cook?
We wash the cucumbers well with water, cut them on both sides. If you want to get dense and crispy cucumbers for the winter, then they should be soaked in cold water for five to six hours. In this case, they will acquire not only a crunch, but also a saturated green color.
After a bit, dry the cucumbers. Cut them lengthwise into six to eight parts. Then grind them into slices with an approximate length of four centimeters.
Carefully wash the carrots, peel and three on a special grater for Korean carrots. Mix it with prepared chopped cucumbers.
Now you can start preparing the most important thing - the marinade. First, grind the garlic through a press or three on a fine grater. Then, in a deep bowl, mix vinegar, sunflower oil, salt, sugar, seasoning for Korean carrots and chopped garlic. Mix all the ingredients well and pour the prepared vegetables with the resulting marinade.
Mix them very carefully and leave them in a cold place for six to eight hours. Can be left overnight. The longer the vegetables are pickled, the more aromatic the cucumber salad will be.
During this time, cucumbers will give a sufficient amount of juice. This pickle will be very fragrant. We mix all the ingredients again and begin to lay out the salad in sterilized jars.
You need to put cucumbers with carrots tightly enough. Pour the empty space with brine from vegetables.
Next, cover the jars with lids and put in a pan for further sterilization of the salad "Cucumbers in Korean." Water should reach the so-called coat hanger shoulders. After it boils, reduce the heat and leave the cans with the workpiece to boil for twenty minutes. After that they can be twisted.
After we turn the cans with the lid down and cover with a blanket until completely cooled. This will take about one day. Then lettuce can be stored in a cool place without direct sunlight.
From this number of products, a little more than five cans of 0.5 liters are obtained.
You can store this salad for a sufficiently long time, but believe me, for a long time it will not stand idle. Everything is eaten very quickly. Of course, for the first time it is worth making a small amount of lettuce per sample. Further, the number of products can be increased by two or three times. The infusion time of the marinade will not change from this.
Cucumber and onion salad
In addition to the above harvest from overgrown cucumbers, you can cook another simple, but very tasty salad for the winter. To do this, we need the following ingredients:
- Two kilograms of overgrown cucumbers.
- A pound of onion.
- About fifty grams of dill, this is one large bunch.
- Half a glass of flavourless vegetable oil.
- Five tablespoons of nine percent vinegar.
- Two tablespoons of table salt and granulated sugar.
Cooking
To prepare such a salad is better in small jars of 0.5 or 0.7 liters.
Cucumbers are thoroughly washed and cut into small pieces. Their thickness should not be more than 70 millimeters. Onion cut into rings. Grind dill in random order. We combine all the vegetables in a large bowl and cover them with salt and sugar. Leave for about thirty minutes or an hour, so that the cucumbers give juice. Next, add sunflower oil and vinegar. Again, mix everything and begin to lay out the salad in banks, in each of which they put on a bay leaf and two or three peas of allspice. We sterilize the contents of the cans for ten to fifteen minutes. Close them, turn the lid down and cover with a blanket until it cools completely.