Pickled cucumbers are a traditional appetizer that allows you to diversify your diet in the autumn-winter period. Russian cuisine cannot be imagined without it. It would seem that there is nothing complicated in the recipes for such blanks: washed, put in a suitable container, filled with pure salt water … However, not everyone knows how to salt cucumbers in jars so that they are crispy until spring.
5 secrets of making crispy pickles
1. If you want to learn how to salt cucumbers in jars for the winter so that they crunch pleasantly and do not become soft and hollow, first of all, carefully select the raw materials. Choose vegetables that are firm to the touch, thick-skinned, small, about the same size, with pimples. Try a couple of cucumbers from the same crop and make sure they don't taste bitter.
2. Crispy pickles are obtained only with the purest water! Ideally, you need a village spring; in an urban setting, a bottled artesian one is suitable. Tap water can be cleaned well by making it melt. To do this, pour the liquid into plastic bottles or glass jars, not to the top, remove the first pieces of ice. Then freeze the water to half, drain the unfrozen, defrost the ice in an unopened container at room temperature. Of course, you have to tinker, but pickles in melt water will turn out to be very tasty!
3. Soak the cucumbers before salting if you want them crispy and firm. Pour the vegetables in a clean deep bowl with cold water, keep for 3-5 hours, then remove and rinse with ice running water. Please note: if the cucumbers have been picked recently, the soaking time can be shortened, if long ago, it can be increased.
4. The crispness of salted vegetables, as well as the richness of their taste, depends on what you put in the jars along with the main raw materials. Choose coarse rock salt. The roots and leaves of horseradish give the cucumbers crispness. A classic set for delicious pickles - cherry branches, dill umbrellas, currant leaves, allspice, garlic. You can also add oak leaves, mint, herbs and experiment with seasonings. All leaves should be coarsely chopped or torn. Cover the bottom with spices, put them between the layers of vegetables, put on top of the workpiece.
5. Salt cucumbers in jars to make them crispy, you can only in a clean container! First soak the containers in a soda solution, then rinse thoroughly in warm soapy water. Rinse thoroughly and rinse with boiling water. Then sterilize the lids in boiling water. Soak the jars for 5-7 minutes over steam or place them in the oven completely dry at the maximum temperature for 10 minutes, then let stand with the oven lid open for 5-7 minutes and remove with dry mittens (towel). To sterilize in a microwave oven, put the container for 3 minutes at a power of 800 watts, pouring in water one and a half centimeters.
Pickled cucumber recipes
Blank recipes may vary slightly. If you want to salt cucumbers in jars so that they are crispy until spring, be sure to follow the above rules for the selection of raw materials, water, salt, dishes. Lay vegetables as vertically and tightly as possible.
Prepare cucumbers, soak, rinse, do not cut the bottom. On each bottom of the sterilized jars, put 3 garlic cloves, a cherry twig, 2-3 dill umbrellas, a couple of black currant leaves and horseradish. Place vegetables and cover with brine prepared at the rate of 2 tablespoons per 1 liter of clean water.
Close the container with plastic lids and keep it in a room at a temperature of no more than 18 ° C until the coating begins to swell. Open the jars, release excess air, for 10-12 hours. After that, put the closed container in the cold for permanent storage.
Another option for salting crispy cucumbers is with the preparation of hot brine. Put spices in prepared jars, and overlay vegetables with them. Dissolve rock salt in clean cold water at the rate of 3 tablespoons per 3-liter jar, then pour over cucumbers and leave to ferment for 3 days. Gently drain the spicy brine, boil, immediately refill the vegetables and roll up the container. Place the jars upside down until they cool, wrapping them in a fleece blanket.
