Skillful housewives have come up with more than a thousand recipes for harvesting pickled cucumbers for the winter. A variety of natural preservatives are added to cans or barrels - dill umbrellas, garlic, hot peppers, mustard seeds, vodka, currant berries. The most successful way of salting is considered to be cold. It ensures that the lids do not explode and that the brine does not cloud over time. Salting cucumbers with this method is not difficult, and even an inexperienced gardener can easily preserve the surplus of the summer harvest.
Crispy pickles are a popular and very beloved product among the people. They are served with boiled or fried potatoes, as a snack for strong alcohol, used for cooking pickle, hodgepodge, making vinaigrette, salads, everyday and festive sandwiches. To pickle cucumbers for the winter in cold ways, you do not need to boil the brine, sterilize jars, or cook a complex marinade from many components. It is enough to choose a suitable recipe, lay the washed cucumbers with simple ingredients, pour them with salty cold water.
General recommendations for salting
Salt strong cucumbers in the classic cold way, certain conditions should be observed when preparing the crop, jars, adding natural preservatives. It is important to accurately observe the dosages and proportions of step-by-step recipes in order to crunch delicious cucumbers with pleasure in winter, eating them with potatoes.
Here are some clear and simple recommendations designed to achieve successful salting, even in the absence of experience in winter storage.
- It is necessary to salt the cucumbers on the day of their collection, until they lose their elasticity, do not wilted in the heat. If you leave the crop even overnight, it will be impossible to achieve a pleasant crunch of the blanks.
- Fruits of the same size should be put in a jar or barrel so that the brine will salt them evenly.
- Water must be taken filtered or spring, well, without any impurities and extraneous tastes, odors.
- Pre-washed fruits should be poured in a basin with cold water for three hours.
- It is advisable to wash the cans with baking soda, steam them, soak the barrel well, wipe off foreign odors.
- In advance, you should collect in the garden or buy additional ingredients - fresh horseradish leaves, currants, dill umbrellas, currant berries on twigs, oak leaves, cherries, mustard seeds, vodka, ordinary table vinegar.
- All the seasonings necessary for the recipe must be distributed evenly in the jars - a third to the bottom, a third in the middle, the rest on top.
- You need to store winter preservation in a cool warm place - pantry, cellar, basement, closet, refrigerator.
The simplest rule of cold salting is to cook at home slowly, with pleasure, then the pickles will be tasty, aromatic, eaten immediately after opening the lid.
With mustard, horseradish and cherry leaves
This interesting and easy recipe is good because, when cold salted, cucumbers turn out to be dense, crispy, with a slight sourish aftertaste. Such preparations go well with vodka and potatoes with sauerkraut, black bread, salted or smoked bacon.
What to prepare:
- 5 kg of cucumbers;
- dill umbrellas - 2 per can;
- garlic - head;
- a handful of cherry leaves;
- half horseradish root;
- 2.5 liters of water;
- 2 tablespoons of salt;
- a quarter cup of dry mustard powder.
How to make
- Rinse the cherry leaves, pre-soaked fruits, clean off the dirt from the horseradish root. Peel the garlic.
- Cut off the tips of cucumbers thinly.
- Divide the seasoning into 3 portions to place evenly on the bottom, middle and top of the jar.
- Pour mustard on the bottom of glass containers.
- Lay down all the listed recipe components.
- Dissolve the salt in cold spring water.
- Pour the contents of three-liter or one-liter jars with brine. It will immediately become cloudy due to mixing with mustard powder, then the sediment will sink to the bottom.
- Close with nylon caps, store in a cool place.
With the addition of vodka
This simple step-by-step recipe will help keep the workpieces in liter jars for a long time, and will give salted fruits an unusual piquant taste. It was used by our grandmothers, so the method has been tested not for years, but for decades.
What to prepare:
- 1.5 kg of cucumbers;
- 8 cherry leaves;
- 4 horseradish leaves;
- 4 dill umbrellas;
- 4 cloves of garlic;
- 4 peppercorns;
- 50 g of vodka;
- 1.5 liters of water;
- 3 tablespoons of salt.
How to make
- Soak, then rinse dense fruits, cut off the ends.
- Rinse soda cans, dry.
- Place the cucumbers in jars, alternately adding dill, garlic, pepper, leaves.
- Make a brine, pour the contents of the containers, leaving 3-4 mm at the neck.
- Pour a little vodka on top into each liter jar, close the lids, put away for storage.
Using the trick with vodka, you can keep the workpieces in a cold place for up to two years, without fear that the pickles will turn sour, ferment, or the brine will become cloudy.
With a pod of hot pepper
A simple step-by-step recipe for cold pickling with hot peppers and herbs will not cause difficulties even for an inept housewife. As a result, the cucumbers will turn out to be a little spicy, very aromatic and tasty. Such preparations can be safely served in a men's company with vodka or strong home-made moonshine - everyone, without exception, will appreciate the treat.
What to prepare:
- 2 kg of freshly picked fruits;
- any greens (dill umbrellas, horseradish leaves, currants, cherries, oak);
- a pod or two red hot peppers;
- 1.5 liters of water;
- 3-4 tablespoons of salt;
- peppercorns to the bottom of the jars.
How to make
- Rinse the jars with soda.
- Soak the cucumbers for 5-6 hours, then wash, cut off the ends of each vegetable.
- Rinse currant leaves, horseradish, dill umbrellas under running water.
- Spread greens and peppercorns on the bottom of the containers.
- Cut hot pepper into slices, put 1-2 slices in each liter jar.
- Apply brine by dissolving rock salt in water. Iodized one cannot be taken.
- Fill the jars with cucumbers, shifting the leaves, pour the brine over.
- Close the lids, let it ferment for 4-5 days at room temperature.
- When the brine becomes clear and the sediment settles to the bottom, drain the liquid.
- Fill containers with clean well water, roll up.
- Put in the cold for storage.
As from a barrel
Those who love crispy salted barrel cucumbers will love a recipe suitable for the conditions of an ordinary city apartment. Cucumbers with such cold salting will turn out fragrant, tasty, lightly salted, like from a barrel. They will hardly even change color. Such pickles can be prepared in glass liter, three-liter jars.
What to prepare:
- 5 black currant leaves;
- 3 leaves of oak;
- 3 cloves of garlic;
- a bunch of dill or umbrellas;
- the tip from a pod of hot pepper;
- horseradish leaf and part of the spine;
- about 2 kg of cucumbers;
- 75 g of salt for every liter of water.
How to make
- In a three-liter jar (the recipe is designed for 1 container of this volume), put a horseradish root 2 cm long, a horseradish leaf, garlic, a piece of hot red pepper.
- Then put inside currant and oak leaves, dill.
- Fill the jar with cucumbers soaked in ice water for 5-6 hours.
- Fill with induced brine according to the above proportions.
- Pour the contents with salt water, close the nylon cap.
- Remove for 2-3 days in a cool place.
- When the workpiece is fermented, some of the brine will flow out through the lid, so you need to top up the jars with brine again.
- Remove to the basement for the winter.
In order not to guess which method of cold pickling of cucumbers to choose for the preparation of canning, you can try each recipe, and compare the tastes of pickles in winter.
