Apricots are heat-loving plants, so the tree can be found in the Caucasus and Central Asia, in Ukraine and Moldova, as well as in the southern regions of Russia. Apricots are consumed fresh and dried, they are boiled with sugar and frozen whole. From apricots you can make marmalades, candy, jam, jam, jelly. They contain a lot of pectin, dextrin, inulin, organic acids (malic, citric, salicylic, tartaric).
Therefore, preparing apricot jam for the winter , the recipe of which you got from your grandmother, you do not only stockpile of tasty treats: first of all, you harvest vitamins. After all, apricots, preservation recipes or preparations for the winter of which are different for everyone, contain a huge number of trace elements - potassium, sodium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, silicon; up to 28% sugars (in dried apricots - up to 85%), ascorbic acid, vitamins P, PP, B1, B2, B15, a lot of provitamin A (carotene).
During the harvest, the fruits are not only cooked, dried, cooked apricot jam. The recipe for making pastille from apricots is also very good, since all the useful substances of this amazing fruit are stored in it. In Central Asia, apricot pastille is dried on flat hot stones, it is perfectly preserved all winter, twisted in the form of tubes, and serves as a source of vitamins and an excellent treat for tea. Since the pastille is prepared with the addition of flour, pouring it with boiling water, you can get sweet and sour apricot jelly.
Unlike garden apricot, its wild relative is less sweet, but contains an increased amount of calcium salts, carotene, and other trace elements and vitamins. In the East, wild apricot is made from jam, and apricots are also made in syrup. The recipe for a national treat of apricot boiled with lamb fat is original and original. As a result of this type of apricot harvesting, dark briquettes called kaurma are obtained. It is high in calories and easily digestible.
Useful properties of apricot make zealous housewives to harvest not only stewed fruit, jams, jam, and apricot jam for the winter; The recipe for making apricot juice is simple, but its nutritional value is beyond doubt: 150 grams of this wonderful drink contains the daily norm of carotene. Therefore, apricot juice is recommended for pregnant women, young children, as well as anyone who wants to improve their eyesight.
Apricots are useful for those who suffer from anemia, since only 100 grams of fruit contains as much iron as 250 grams of liver.
Since apricot fruits have a lot of potassium salts, they are an excellent regulator of metabolic processes and are useful for people with problems of the cardiovascular system, such as arrhythmia, heart failure, etc.
To maintain the active work of the brain, a person needs to eat up to 500 grams of apricots per day, because the phosphorus and magnesium contained in the fruits provide nutrition to the brain cells and stimulate its activity.
Also, due to its high magnesium content, apricots act as a hypotensive agent, and is recommended for those who suffer from hypertension: in the ripening season, as much as possible apricots should be consumed to prevent pressure increase.
But people suffering from diabetes are not recommended to use not only apricot jam. The recipe for stewed fruit, jams, and even dried and fresh apricots is not for them, because apricots contain a lot of sugars, which is very undesirable for diabetics.
In addition to fruits, as an astringent and enveloping agent, apricot gum is used. Apricot kernel kernels act as a sedative for tracheitis, cough, laryngitis and bronchitis.