Cucumbers are a vegetable that is very popular in salted and pickled form. They are widely used by housewives. Indeed, pickled cucumbers themselves are a delicious snack, in addition, they can be added to various salads and even to some hot dishes.
There are a great many recipes for pickling cucumbers . But there are general rules that must be observed when preserving. For example, you should not use cucumbers of salad varieties for marinades, in the finished form such vegetables turn out to be soft and tasteless. Before canning, it is advisable to soak the cucumbers in cold water for six to eight hours, this will make the vegetables more elastic and crisp.
To make the pickled cucumbers tastier, add various spices to the jars of vegetables - horseradish leaves, dill umbrellas, coriander seeds, garlic cloves and other vegetables and seasonings. To give cucumbers a fortress, it is advisable to add oak leaves to the cans.
You can cook pickled cucumbers by sterilization or using three times the filling. In the first case, the prepared vegetables along with spices are placed in a jar, pour them with a recipe of marinade, cover the jars with lids and put into sterilized boiling water. Liter jars, as a rule, it is enough to keep in boiling water for about 15 minutes, after which they are carefully removed from the sterilizer and hermetically sealed. It is better not to put rolled cucumbers under the "coat", so they will become soft. To avoid this drawback, cool the jars in air.
With the method of canning by triple pouring, cucumbers are placed in jars in the same way as in the first case. Then fill the cans with boiling water and, having covered with lids from above, maintain until the water cools down to a warm state. Then it is drained from the cans (it is convenient to use a lid with holes) and refilled with cool boiling water. While the water of the second pouring cools, prepare the marinade using liquid drained from cans. For the third time, the cans are poured not with boiling water, but with boiling marinade and immediately rolled up.
And now the recipe, using which you can cook pickled cucumbers. Three kilograms of cucumbers (wash, soak in water, trim the tips) will require one hundred grams of salt and sugar, half a liter of vinegar (6%), 10 bay leaves, 50 peas of black and allspice, five sheets of horseradish and 40 cloves . If desired, garlic cloves, carrot slices, umbrellas or dill seeds or slices of sweet pepper can be added to the jars. Using this recipe, cucumbers can be prepared in the first and second ways.
But all these are recipes for harvesting vegetables for the winter. But what if a pickle was wanted right now? In this case, you can use the recipe for salted cucumbers. There are plenty of ways to cook this delicious and quick appetizer. We will tell you how to salted cucumbers.
For example, you can use such a simple recipe. We take cucumbers, wash, cut off the tips. If very large specimens are caught, then you need to make one or two longitudinal punctures with a knife in them. Then we put the vegetables in a suitable dish, adding spices (horseradish leaf, garlic, dill, allspice). Now we are preparing a solution, for one liter of water we take a spoonful of salt and sugar. We boil this mixture and pour cucumbers in boiling brine. We leave it on the table until it cools, then set it in the cold. After 10-12 hours, the snack is ready.
And here's an even simpler recipe - dry pickling of cucumbers, in this case, you don’t even have to cook a pickle. We will salted vegetables in a plastic bag. We take 10-12 small cucumbers, wash them, cut off the tips. We put vegetables in a bag, add dill, currant leaves, garlic and any spices to your liking there. Now we pour a decent pinch of salt there, inflate the bag and tie it tightly, mixing vegetables and spices well. We put the package in a bowl and send it to the refrigerator. Salted cucumbers will be suitable for serving after three hours.