Pickled gooseberries for the winter: original ways and their nuances

Gooseberry is a very spiny plant with dense round or oval berries of green, yellow, purple or burgundy color. Hue depends on the variety. This berry is called "royal" for its exceptionally delicate taste in winter preparations. Especially in boiled sweet syrup and pickled form. Let's get acquainted with one of the most common preparations for the winter and prepare pickled gooseberries.

Berry preparation

Marinating gooseberries for the winter is not difficult, but these berries require special processing. It consists of the following steps:

• cleaning berries from the stalks and tails of wilted flowers is a very long process, but it is better not to neglect it and spend time for the excellent taste of the finished snack;
• gooseberry washing - in a cup with cold water manually, sorting through each berry;
• drying the berries on a clean kitchen towel (you can take paper) - otherwise they will have a lot of water, which will interfere with the preparation of the workpieces;
• piercing - each berry needs to be pierced with a thin toothpick, otherwise the thick skin will not allow them to boil and marinate completely.

Original gooseberry pickling recipes

1) With mustard seeds.

What products will be needed:

• 2 cup gooseberries;
• 200 g of granulated sugar or powder;
• 1 cup boiled or filtered water;
• 20 g mustard seeds;
• 60 ml apple cider vinegar.

We start to cook pickled gooseberries:

1. First process the berries as described above.
2. Then boil the sweet syrup from sugar and water. By the way, sugar can easily be replaced with natural flower honey or fructose.
3. Transfer dried gooseberries to syrup and cook for about two minutes.
4. In the meantime, prepare the jar. Such original snacks are best prepared in small containers. You can take glass jars with a volume of 0.5 or 0.25 liters. They must be thoroughly washed with water and baking soda. Rinse with hot water and pour boiling water. Boil the lid for the workpiece in a separate pan.
5. So, pour boiling water out of the can and put the gooseberry from syrup into it.
6. And with the boiling syrup remaining in the pan, do the following: add mustard and vinegar to it. Boil for a couple of minutes and pour the berries in a jar. Cork with lids and remove for cooling.

2) With fennel.

What products are needed:

• 2 cup gooseberries;
• 200 g of granulated sugar or flower honey;
• 1 cup boiled or filtered water;
• 15 g of fennel seeds ;
• 50 ml of wine vinegar.

How to cook:

1. Initial treatment of berries (peeling, washing, piercing).
2. Mix sugar with water and cook until boiling over moderate heat.
3. Add berries and fennel seeds to the syrup. Cook for 4-5 minutes.
4. Pour in wine vinegar. After a couple of minutes, carefully pour the mixture into hot sterilized jars. It is necessary to watch that the edges of the neck of the can remain dry and clean, otherwise the lid will not close tightly. Immediately close with sterilized lids and remove for slow cooling.

Tip

For the preparation of gooseberry blanks, you can take ripe or unripe berries. For sweet preparation, ripe copies are preferable, but slightly immature berries should be used in sour or sweet and sour snacks.

Gooseberries should not be cleaned immediately in a cool cellar. Hot cans should naturally cool in a warm place. Otherwise, such a blank will not stand until winter - it will go bad.

Suitable spices and seasonings

With mustard (you can take seeds or ground powder), the pickled gooseberry has a spicy taste. Preparations for the winter can be done with other spices and spices. You need to navigate here solely to your own taste. For example, ground cinnamon, coriander or nutmeg will be useful for the berries - a pinch is enough. Allspice or black peppercorns, clove inflorescences, dill seeds or dried barberry are also great. These combinations look good in combination with sweet and sour gooseberries.

There are recipes in which gooseberries are pickled with cloves of garlic. The cooking does not change, just put whole small cloves together with the berries. This option is designed for the amateur and not everyone will like it.

Apple or wine vinegar, if desired, can be replaced with a regular table, but at the same time, its bookmark should be significantly reduced. How much acid to add, you decide. Try the blank and you will understand. The taste of syrup with vinegar should be slightly sour, without a pronounced aftertaste.

Use of workpiece

Gooseberries marinated in any way can be served at the festive or dining table as an independent snack or as an addition to the main hot dish.

Interesting options are obtained if you add the prepared berries to the pies. Together with the fresh dough, sweet and sour berries with a spicy hue produce an amazing effect. Be sure the pie will go off with a bang!

Additives

Instead of a one-component appetizer of the "royal" berries, you can make original combinations. For example, add cherries or currants to the blank.