A sunny summer is passing with its abundance of vegetables and fruits. We would like to have vegetables on the table in the cold, too, and for the winter we stock up on the summer sun in the form of various marinades, pickles, jams.
Now I will share the secrets of my mother about how to make pepper pickled for the winter be beautiful and, most importantly, tasty for a long time. First you need to choose the variety and type that suits us at the bazaar. It should be a beautiful yellow - green color and, preferably, not small. Small varieties of pepper, very bitter. The optimal size for the workpiece is from 14 to 25 cm. It is also important that the peppers are fleshy, otherwise the dried fruit will not be nice to eat, anyway, that is to chew oilcloth. All of them should be whole, not spoiled.
In order for pickled bitter pepper to be used as a delicious snack, try its spiciness before buying. At the tip, the sharpness should not be felt at all. Bitterness should appear somewhere in the last quarter, before the stalk. A bitter one will greatly burn your mouth in winter, and it’s not very tasty. Everything, as they say, should be in moderation. The sharpness should be pleasant, without bitterness.
Now, in order for our pickled green pepper to maintain its beautiful light color and not blacken, we need to stock up on leaves from corn. Usually they use leaves taken from the corn cobs of milk ripeness. Corn stigmas (hairs) do not need to be put. But in principle, this is not a big difference, you can use leaves from ripened cobs, the main thing is that the leaves themselves are not very dry and dry. They must be green. From ripe ears, only internal leaves should be taken.
In order to cook pickled hot peppers, we need to additionally prepare celery greens and dill. Dill should be taken at the stage when umbrellas have already formed, but it has not yet dried out, and the seeds have just begun to form. At this time, it has the most persistent aroma.
In order to prepare for the winter, I take the following proportion of products:
- Hot pepper - 5 kg.
- Dill umbrellas - 500 grams.
- Celery - 500 grams.
- Leaves of ears of corn - 1 kg.
- Vinegar 5% wine or apple - 250 grams.
- Water - 2 liters.
- Salt - 300 grams.
In order to cook pickled peppers for the winter , you need to choose a voluminous enameled pan, with a whole inner surface or a glass jar. Rinse the peppers well, clean from the remnants of leaves. We pickle the peppers along with the stalks, they just need to be carefully trimmed to a length of 1 centimeter. The leaves of the ears of corn are divided into three parts. The first layer will be laid on the bottom, then we will lay them in the middle and close on top, like a blanket. At the bottom of the pan we spread a layer of corn leaves, then dill and celery. Then we lay a layer of pepper, again a layer of leaves and herbs, the remaining pepper, and cover with corn leaves on top.
Now we start to cook the marinade. Pour cold water, vinegar, salt into an enameled pan. We put on the fire. After the marinade boils, it is necessary to cook for 2-3 minutes. Remove the foam. Pour boiling marinade into a pan with prepared pepper. The marinade should completely cover our billet. Do not worry if there is not enough fluid in the beginning. Gradually, the vegetables will soften from hot water and settle. Cover with a lid and put in a cool place. Pickled peppers will completely salt out after 10 days and will be ready for use.
If, having tried your harvest, you decide that you have chosen a too bitter variety, then this situation can be slightly corrected. Cook the marinade again in the same proportions. Pour the tasty marinade, and fill it with new. Only unlike the first time, you will have to cool it and pour it into a jar of pepper already cold.