Sea buckthorn is a storehouse of vitamins and minerals. This is one of the most useful berries among those growing in our country. It is rightly called the "miracle berry" due to the healing properties that the ancient Greeks knew about, preparing drugs based on sea buckthorn for warriors and war horses. Not everyone knows that not only the berries of this plant are healing, but also leaves, and even bark. The berries of sea buckthorn are perishable products, so the questions about how to preserve this vitamin treasury for a long winter period and whether it is possible to freeze sea buckthorn for the winter are relevant.
Sea buckthorn: a little about the benefits
Sea buckthorn is rich in such vitamins: B1, B3, B6, C, H, PP. Due to the huge content of vitamin C, it is used to prevent colds. But this is far from all of its virtues. The berry contains many valuable trace elements, such as iron, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, calcium, flavonoids, keratinoids, and in addition, glucose, folic, tartaric, malic and citric acids. These berries have tannins and protein substances, as well as monounsaturated fatty acids (omega-3).
Sea buckthorn helps with many ailments. It is used for cardiovascular diseases due to the ability to strengthen the walls of blood vessels. Its berries have antioxidant properties, accelerate skin regeneration and wound healing. Therefore, they are used as a remedy for burns of various degrees, as well as to remove age spots and other skin lesions and changes.
Regular intake of sea buckthorn berries will provide an anti-inflammatory and antiviral effect in the treatment of acute respiratory viral infections. When mixed with honey, it will cure cough.
Contraindications
Sea buckthorn, like any berries, has a high content of fruit acids. In this connection, caution with it should be shown to everyone who has an increased acidity of gastric juice and diseases such as gastritis and gastric ulcer, cholecystitis, pancreatitis or urolithiasis. In addition, fresh sea buckthorn berries have a laxative effect.
How to freeze sea buckthorn for the winter?
Gardeners who grow these sunny trees know that for all their value, they are unpretentious in growing. But it is not enough to grow berries, you should still competently preserve them. Stewed fruit and jam is, of course, good, but the heat treatment reduces the usefulness to almost zero. Is it possible to freeze sea buckthorn for the winter? After all, it is known that during freezing, a greater number of useful substances are preserved. This is a responsible matter, especially when it comes to such a useful product as sea buckthorn berries. It is necessary to approach this process thoroughly - the result directly depends on it.
Firstly, you should carefully sort out the crop. Damaged or unripe berries are totally unsuitable for freezing. In addition, you need to remove excess garbage.
After all ripe fruits are selected, they should be washed. To do this, you need to pour water into a deep container and pour the berries into it. Then gently wash them. It is better to change the water in the process several times.
The next step will be drying. For freezing, excess moisture is not needed. The washed berries must be laid out on paper towels and allowed to dry. This will take about 30-40 minutes.
Further, it is desirable to subject the product to shock freezing at -20 ° C. To do this, you need to lay the berries in a thin layer on flat plates or pallets lined with parchment paper and place in the freezer for a couple of hours.
Important: freezing berries at an insufficiently low temperature of about -10-12 ° C will not give the desired result and lead to spoilage of raw materials.
Frozen berries can be arranged in separate bags or plastic containers for long-term storage. In this case, it is necessary to place containers separately from frozen meat and fish.
Sea buckthorn can be stored in the freezer for no more than 9 months.
Sweet sea buckthorn from the freezer
Is it possible to freeze sea buckthorn for the winter with sugar? Sure you may. This option is suitable for everyone who loves a sweeter one, especially since this berry is quite tart and slightly sour.
To freeze berries with sugar, all preparatory procedures (sorting, washing, drying) should be carried out as with normal freezing. Sugar should be added after shock freezing. Thus, the sugar will be distributed evenly, and the berries will not lose their shape and will look like fresh. You can dose the sweetness to taste, but do not overdo it so as not to wrap the benefit to the detriment. It is enough to add half of the sugar to part of the berries.
Sea buckthorn rubbed with sugar
Is it possible to freeze sea buckthorn for the winter in another way? There is an option - to prepare frozen berries, after grinding them to a puree state. This method is suitable for those who are not enthusiastic about the seeds. In addition, freezing mashed potatoes will save a lot of space in the freezer due to its compactness.
The recipe for such miraculous mashed potatoes is simple. Selected washed and dried berries are mashed with a sugar blender. The latter is added depending on taste preferences. The usual proportions of sugar and berries are 1: 1. Ready sweet aromatic puree is laid out in shallow plastic containers and placed in the freezer.
Frozen Sea Buckthorn Jam
Frozen berries are suitable for jam. The process of preparing this winter treat is different only in that you have to first defrost the sea buckthorn.
For jam you will need: 1 kg of berries, 1.5 kg of sugar and about 1 liter of water. Berries should be thawed and squeezed. Cook syrup from sugar and water. Place the berries in it and let it brew for 4 hours. After that, bring to a boil and simmer for no more than 10 minutes, until the syrup becomes clear. Pour the finished and slightly chilled jam into the prepared container.
Jam from sea buckthorn frozen for the winter is obtained exactly the same as from fresh berries, both in taste and in beneficial properties.
The benefits of frozen berries
If you freeze sea buckthorn for the winter, is it possible to make the usual sweet cakes, other pastries and other culinary delights from such a berry?
To get a shock dose of vitamins and get rid of winter depression, it is enough to get a small portion of frozen berries and let them melt a little. After that you can eat. If sea buckthorn is frozen without sugar, it is not too late to add at this stage.
Of course, frozen berries are also suitable for cooking all kinds of dishes and desserts. Berries do not lose their beneficial properties after freezing.
Having figured out how to freeze sea buckthorn for the winter, you can not worry about maintaining the useful properties of this Russian superfood. You can freeze sea buckthorn for the winter for both tea and for making sweet pastries, preserves, delicious berry purees. It is useful to eat berries in frozen form, adding to morning porridge or yogurt.