On the festive table, pickled cucumber occupies a respectable place.
Many housewives know that preparing vegetables in the summer is easy, but for many this idea ends in failure.
Therefore, it is worth knowing the effective secrets.
Vegetable selection rules
- Pay attention to varieties.
Favorite, Nezhinsky, Competitor, Murom, Nosovsky, Era, Stage, Cascade, Voronezhsky, Altai, Beregovoi, Avangard, Vyaznikovsky 37 are usually suitable for salting.
Among the new varieties and hybrids, Khabar, Merry guys, Zasolochny, Hermann, Paris gherkin, Liliput, F1 Nightingale, F1 Courage, F1 Semcross, etc. will do.
- The size of the vegetable is 5-13 cm, it should be short-fruited.
- According to maturity, cucumbers must be fully ripe.
- The peel of pickling cucumbers is distinguished by a lumpy surface, black and prickly spines, of sufficient thickness.
- The degree of freshness of vegetables should be firm, elastic and have a cool skin. Otherwise, cucumbers will not taste good in pickling.
- Product color should be saturated green without yellowness.. The overripe fruit has hard seeds and peel.
- The taste of vegetables should be pleasant, without bitterness. If the cucumber is bitter, in salting it will remain so.
The secret to the taste of salted vegetables
There are hundreds of recipes for salting cucumbers, all have horseradish, salt and dill. To make the product different in taste, add a combination of seasonings: garlic, amaranth, oak leaves, currants and cherries, laurel.
You can use the following recipe.
For 1 three-liter jar take a horseradish leaf, 10 leaves of amaranth, 5 leaves of currant, 1 umbrella of dill, 3 bay leaves, 2 cloves of garlic, 3 peas of black pepper, 60 g of salt.
Cucumbers are washed and aged for 2-6 hours in cold water. It needs to be changed 2-3 times.
In the jar, first put spices, then the first row of cucumbers vertically, which fit snugly together. The remaining rows can be laid at the discretion of the hostess.
Tails of vegetables can be cut or not - this is also a choice.
Taking the right amount of water for brine, you should pour it into the pan, add 50 g of salt per 1 liter, boil and pour the vegetables.
So cucumbers should ferment for 3 to 5 days at room temperature. If the house has a basement, close the cans with thick plastic lids and leave for the winter.
You can roll tin lids, first draining the pickle and the bay with a freshly prepared dressing.
The best taste of cucumbers is obtained when, 5 days before the new moon, pour the vegetables with brine, then roll them up and put them in the cellar.
To avoid mold, put horseradish roots in thin slices in a jar. If the vegetables are salted in a barrel, it should be boiled off with a decoction of thyme, dill and other herbs.
Mustard powder, added as 1-2 tsp, will not allow ferment.
Features of pickling cucumbers
It is easy to pickle this product, but the seals are perfectly preserved, and the taste is such that vegetables are used independently without additives as a side dish.
Choose pickles for pickling should be the same as for brine. The secret of taste - in the marinade.
The basis for all recipes is a mixture of sugar, salt, spices and spices (black pepper, bay leaf, allspice, garlic, kidney cloves), vinegar (or other food acid).
The proportion is important - the taste of the product depends on the amount of spices.
For the marinade should take 1 liter of water, 2 tbsp. l salt, 3 tbsp. spoons of sugar, 9% vinegar - 100 g. Cucumbers are marinated in several ways:
- Boiling water. In a jar of spices and vegetables, marinade or boiling water is poured 2-3 times for 3-5 minutes. The last time you need to add vinegar and order a jar.
- Cool way. Marinade without heating is poured into a jar, which is immediately rolled up.
- Sterilization. Banks with the laid contents are sterilized.