Pickled apples are an old Russian snack, no less recognized and revered than pickled cucumber. It is not shameful to serve slices of well-cooked apples as an addition to a salad, they are successfully combined with many meat dishes, they can give an interesting touch on skewers for a buffet table.
The original taste of a soaked apple is combined with strong drinks - vodka, whiskey, Calvados, with many dry wines, so they can play the role of a light snack for an aperitif, as a fruit to be an element of a sweet table, as a pickle - to be part of an appetiser. In the photo, they do not always look attractive: the wrinkled skin gives the impression that the apples have aged while they are being cooked. But this only suggests that the apple was treated ineptly by choosing a simple unsuitable variety or the wrong processing mode. Let's together step by step and step by step comprehend the little secrets that our ancestors used to make the "liquid apple" at home tasty and healthy.
Apple, apple, what's your name?
Not every variety is suitable for preparing this simple and unpretentious type of blanks. The choice must be approached very carefully. Only apples that do not soften over time are suitable for peeing. Otherwise, you run the risk of indulging in unattractive applesauce on the way out.
The best for home cooking will be autumn and winter varieties of apples, from among those whose taste is revealed only some time after harvest. But aromatic varieties with a bright taste and dense crunchy pulp are also good. The trick is that the fruits collected at this time accumulate a sufficient proportion of starch and pectin substances, which help the apples to maintain a smooth skin and a dense crunchy structure during urination. Among the advantages of such apples is the ability to survive all winter, spring and part of summer, almost until the new harvest. When sealed, the shelf life is also significantly longer than that of apples of less "maturing" varieties.
If this is your first time starting to cook pickled apples, take Antonovka - you can't go wrong! Subsequently, having acquired the experience of harvesting, it will be possible to select the variety that best suits your taste. It can be Welsey, Courtney, Pepin, Saffron Renet, Bergamot Ranet and many other varieties that are different in color, flavor and taste.
A barrel, a saucepan, a bottle?
The second actual moment is the choice of containers for harvesting apples. Better than an oak barrel is hard to come up with. Even 30 years ago, the share of such blanks began to decrease rapidly, and pickles with marinades moved into glass bottles and enameled pots. Today everything is not so simple. With the increase in the number of owners of individual houses and their well-being, barrels and barrels are returning to cellars and cellars, and cooper art is experiencing a renaissance. But no one canceled glass or enamel containers either, and it is quite possible to use them for wetting apples.
The main thing is that the container is sterile clean, the filling is enough to completely cover the apples, and the oppression is of sufficient weight to cope with the buoyancy of the fruit. It should also be remembered that apples, porous and saturated with air, will absorb the filling gradually (about 1.5 ÷ 2 liters per 1 kg). Therefore, you need to ensure that the top layer does not protrude from under the liquid and periodically, if necessary, top up it. Contact with air is unacceptable: the fruits will immediately deteriorate.
Classic recipe
For filling based on 1 liter of water:
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tablespoon salt
- spices to taste.
Spices - cinnamon, cloves, caraway seeds, nutmeg, mustard grain - each housewife chooses at her discretion. You just need to remember that spices can drown out the aroma inherent in these fruits by nature, therefore it is better not to "squeeze" with spices.
Sugar can be replaced with honey, it will only improve the taste. Boil water for pouring, dissolve salt and sugar in boiling water, cool, strain. If honey is used, it is dissolved in water, boiled and cooled to 80 °, otherwise honey will lose most of its healing properties. Mustard recipes do not use honey.
Depending on your taste preferences, you can slightly increase the sugar or salt content, focusing in the right direction. But do not forget that an excess of salt stops lactic acid fermentation and apples will taste bitter, and an excess of sugar will turn your solution into a perishable hop mash.
The strongest, undamaged fruits, without spots and wormholes, are selected for urination. Wash thoroughly with a brush, you can - with baking soda, especially the groove around the tail, where bacteria and mold spores can hide. Then let it dry by laying it out on a clean towel in one layer.
The bottom of sterilized dishes is laid out with a bedding layer - they can serve as leaves of cabbage, grapes, walnuts, cherries, black currants - who loves what more. Cabbage or grapes will give sourness, cherries or nuts - they will emphasize the natural taste, blackcurrant leaves will add crunchiness. You can also mix several types of leaves, achieving a combination of their effects.
Apples are placed in a container, poured 3 ÷ 5 cm above the last layer with pouring, cooled to room temperature, and placed under oppression. For another two to three days, the apples are kept warm, at room temperature (but not higher than 25 °), after which it is necessary to suspend the lactic acid fermentation process by placing it in the cold - cellar, basement, fruit section of the refrigerator (7-14 °). It is possible and hermetically sealed, having previously boiled the filling according to the rules of conservation. If stored properly, apples will be ready to eat in a month and a half.
Sour recipe (fermentation)
In this case, it is most convenient to ferment apples in cabbage, which itself acquires additional charm from the neighborhood with aromatic fruits, and gives them special taste.
Recipe for 1 kg of apples:
- cabbage - 1-1.5 kg
- carrots - 1 piece (optional)
- sugar - 1 tablespoon;
- salt - 1 tablespoon.
Cabbage is cut (chopped) into narrow strips no more than 0.5 mm wide, carrots are rubbed on a coarse grater. The prepared container is lined with a cabbage leaf. Cabbage with carrots, salt and sugar are mixed, stacked in alternating layers with apples, the voids between the apples are also filled with cabbage, the top layer is from cabbage. When laying, the mixture is well compacted, oppression is installed from above. Depending on the juiciness of the cabbage, the amount of juice released is different, if it is not enough to cover, it is necessary to add the filling from the classic recipe. For the sharpness of the fermentation in the warmth (not higher than 25 °), the workpiece should be for 3-4 days, after which it should migrate into the cold (7-14 °). Readiness - in a month.
