Sun-dried plums at home: recipes

From time immemorial, plums have been considered an excellent object for harvesting. In the villages, it was customary to dry, wet, or make compote from them. But the most popular are still dried plums. The process of preparing them is quite a long one, but the result is a product with excellent taste.

Cooking methods

Those who have tried dried plums at least once know that they can be not only a fragrant dessert or a great snack.

These are juicy fruits, processed in a special way, in some cases they are used as an original side dish for meat. An unusual addition favorably sets off the taste of the main course and makes it more enjoyable. To prepare dried plums, it is necessary to process products at elevated temperatures. To do this, you can use:

• Russian stove;
• an oven;
• electric dryer.

Each of these options has its own specific modes and conditions that must be observed in order for the resulting product to meet the desired requirements. Basically, the technique boils down to the following actions:

1. General processing and partial chopping of fruits. Plums can also be dried completely.
2. Initial heat treatment.
3. The introduction of additional components.
4. Final processing.

Depending on the chosen option, the result is a product that has certain taste.

The benefits and harms of spicy plums

As you know, the fruits of plum tree are excellent helpers for the human body. They are capable of:

• cope with digestive tract problems;
• prevent the appearance of blood clots;
• regulate the level of acidity in the human stomach;
• positively affect the liver;
• save vision;
• remove toxins;
• normalize metabolism.

In addition, plums are often used as a cosmetic tool, as they are able to nourish skin cells, rejuvenating and making it more elastic. All these useful properties are preserved in themselves and dried plums. They can be used by everyone, with the exception of those who have certain medical contraindications to this product. This category of people includes patients with diabetes or obesity who are better off not including these fruits in their daily diet because of their high calorie content. Nursing mothers should also be wary of draining so as not to cause colic or indigestion in babies.

Do it yourself

Fragrant spicy plums can turn even the simplest dish into a real culinary masterpiece. That is why it is advisable for every housewife to have such useful products in stock at home. But you do not have to go to the store for this. You can completely make dried plums at home. Moreover, this will require very few products: 1 kilogram of fresh plums, 3 cloves of garlic, salt, 100 milliliters of olive oil, allspice and black pepper, as well as dried herbs (rosemary, oregano and thyme).

Making dried plums at home is easy. To do this:

1. Select for work only ripe, fleshy, but fairly dense fruits. After that, they need to be washed and thoroughly dried.
2. Divide each plum with a sharp knife into two halves and remove the seeds from them.
3. Sprinkle slices lightly with salt and a mixture of dried herbs, and then gently spread them on a baking sheet.
4. Preheat the oven to 120 degrees, and then send prepared foods there for 5 hours.
5. At this time, you can peel the garlic and prepare the necessary dishes.
6. After processing, the slices of the drain should shrink a little and lose in volume. Now they need to be folded into a glass container, alternating with the remaining spices and pieces of garlic.
7. Next, the products need to be filled with oil, corked and refrigerated.

In this condition, the products can be stored for up to 3 months. At any time they can be obtained and used for their intended purpose.

According to the advice of Italian masters

In the Mediterranean countries, spicy vegetables and fruits are very popular. So, in Italian cuisine there is a recipe with which you can make very tasty dried plums in the oven yourself. To do this, you need the following set of ingredients: 1.2 kilograms of ripe plums, 80-90 milliliters of olive and 50 milliliters of vegetable oil, a pinch of sea salt, 5 cloves of garlic, 2 teaspoons of a mixture of Mediterranean dried herbs with basil and a tablespoon of liquid honey.

The cooking process must be carried out in a certain sequence:

1. Remove seeds from the washed fruits and cut the remaining pulp into 4 parts.
2. Lay them peeled down on a baking sheet covered with foil or parchment.
3. In a separate bowl, mix aromatic herbs with oil and honey. Pour the mixture with the resulting mixture.
4. After that, they need to be salted and again sprinkled with herbs.
5. Place the baking tray with the prepared fruits for 3 hours in the oven, preheated to 130 degrees.
6. In conclusion, the dried quarters should be put in clean jars together with finely chopped garlic and fresh herbs (rosemary, basil), and then pour all this with olive oil and close tightly with a lid.

It is better to store such blanks after cooling in a cool place.

Simplest option

Those who are not used to spicy aromas can be offered to make sweet dried plums in the oven. It will be very simple, since only two main components are required for work: 2 kilograms of fresh plums and 400 grams of granulated sugar.

For work, it is better to choose a variety of Hungarian. Its fruits are quite large and fleshy. The process technology in this case will be slightly different:

1. First, as usual, the fruits must be washed, and then, cutting each of them in half, remove the seeds.
2. After this, the workpieces need to be folded into an enameled container (pan), sprinkled with sugar, and then, placing a press on top, put in a cool place for several hours until juice appears on the surface.
3. The liquid must be separated by filtering through a colander, and put the halves themselves on a baking sheet, not forgetting to cover it with parchment.
4. Preheat the oven to 60 degrees, and then put the products into it, leaving the door slightly ajar. The processing time will depend on the desired degree of drying.

Finished products just need to be put in sterile jars and, having covered them with a lid, put in a cool place.

In vivo

To make a tasty dried plum, the recipe can be simplified as much as possible by eliminating any additional devices from it. So, it is not necessary to use an oven for heat treatment. It is quite possible to replace it with natural sunlight. For this option, you will need the main ingredients in the following ratio: 5 kilograms of plums (not overripe), 2 buckets of water and 80 grams of baking soda.

The work will be carried out in the following order:

1. First, plums need to be sorted out, removing rotted fruits.
2. After that, they must be cut lengthwise and the bones removed.
3. Boil water with soda (10 liters 80 grams), and then, after putting the slices on a colander, lower them alternately in a boiling solution for 3 minutes.
4. Fold processed foods immediately in a bucket of cold water.
5. After this, the blanks need to be washed, dried with a towel and, laid out on sheets of plywood covered with gauze, set in the sun.
6. After a three-hour treatment, the fruits should be shaded for 5 hours.
7. Repeat the heating and drying cycles several times until the products become sufficiently elastic and the liquid ceases to stand out when pressed.

It turns out a very delicate and fragrant dried plum. The recipe is good for rural residents and owners of suburban areas.

Technique to help

It is very easy to make dried plums in an electric dryer. This appliance partly replaces the oven. Therefore, the same recipes are sometimes suitable for both devices. Using an electric drying chamber, many products are processed. And sometimes options are practiced when this requires minimal preparation of the main ingredient. This is how prunes are made in electric dryers.

For work, only fresh fruits, water and baking soda are needed. Withering of products occurs as follows:

1. The first step is to blanch the fruits. To do this, they must first be dipped for 30 seconds in a boiling soda solution (15 grams of powder per 1 liter of liquid), and then immediately rinsed in cold water. It is necessary to ensure that no cracks appear on the surface of the fruit. In this case, you must either reduce the time of heat treatment, or reduce the concentration of the solution.
2. Put prepared plums on a pallet covered with baking paper and send them to the drying chamber for 3 hours at a temperature of 50 degrees.
3. Take out the products and let them cool completely and lie down for 4 hours.
4. Return the plums to the dryer again. In this case, the temperature should already be at least 75 degrees.

This alternation can be repeated for two days. The main thing is that the product remains elastic to the touch and juice does not stand out from the pulp when pressed.

Spicy sweets

There is another original option, with the help of which you can easily cook dried plums sweet. In this case, you need very little time, and as additional ingredients you only need salt, spices and sugar.

The cooking method is partly similar to the previous options:

1. Divided washed plums in the usual way into two halves and remove seeds from them.
2. After that, they need to be sprinkled with selected additional components. To make dried fruits as sweet as possible, all ingredients except sugar can be completely eliminated.
3. Place the food in the oven for a couple of hours at a temperature of 120 degrees and wait until the slices dry out a little. At the same time, they must maintain their plasticity.

Finished products will only have to shift in clean glass jars and pour oil. Store food in a cool place with a closed lid. For aroma, along with dried plums, you can put some garlic. If only sugar was used, this should not be done.