1. Pay attention to varieties.

   Favorite, Nezhinsky, Competitor, Muromsky, Nosovsky, Era, Etaap, Cascade, Voronezh, Altai, Beregovoy, Avangard, Vyaznikovsky 37 are usually suitable for salting.

   Among the new varieties and hybrids, Khabar, Merry Guys, Zasolochny, Herman, Parisian Gherkin, Lilliput, F1 Nightingale, F1 Courage, F1 Semcross, etc. are suitable.

2. The size of the vegetable is 5–13 cm, it should be short-fruited.
3. By the degree of maturity, the cucumbers must be fully ripe.
4. The peel of pickled cucumbers is characterized by a lumpy surface, black and prickly spines, and sufficient thickness.
5. In terms of freshness, vegetables should be firm, firm and have a cool skin. Otherwise, the cucumbers will be tasteless when salted.
6. The color of the product should be deep green without yellowing... Overripe fruit has hard seeds and peel.
7. The taste of vegetables should be pleasant, without bitterness. If the cucumber is bitter, it will remain so in salting.

The secret to the taste of salted vegetables

There are hundreds of recipes for pickling cucumbers, all of which are based on horseradish, salt and dill. To make the product different in taste, add combinations of seasonings: garlic, amaranth, oak leaves, currants and cherries, laurel.

You can use the following recipe.

For 1 three-liter cans take a horseradish leaf, 10 amaranth leaves, 5 currant leaves, 1 dill umbrella, 3 bay leaves, 2 garlic cloves, 3 black peppercorns, 60 g table salt.

Cucumbers are washed and aged for 2-6 hours in cold water... It needs to be changed 2-3 times.

Spices are first put into the jar, then the first row of cucumbers vertically, which fit tightly to each other. The rest of the rows can be laid at the discretion of the hostess.

The tails of vegetables can be trimmed or not - this is also a choice.

Taking the right amount of water for the brine, you should pour it into a saucepan, 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, you should close the jars with tight plastic lids and leave them for the winter.

You can roll up tin lids, before draining the brine and filling with freshly prepared dressing.

Cucumbers get the best taste when 5 days before the new moon the vegetables are poured with brine, then rolled up and lowered into the cellar.

To avoid mold, place horseradish roots in thin slices in the jar. If vegetables are salted in a barrel, it must be evaporated with a decoction of thyme, dill and other aromatic herbs.

Mustard powder added as 1–2 teaspoons will prevent fermentation.

Features of pickling cucumbers

It is easy to marinate this product, while the rolls are perfectly preserved, and the taste is such that vegetables are used independently without additives as a side dish.

You should choose cucumbers for pickling in the same way as for pickling. The secret of taste is in the marinade.

The basis for all recipes is a mixture of sugar, salt, spices and herbs (black peppercorns, bay leaves, allspice, garlic, clove buds), vinegar (or other food acid).

The proportion is important - the taste of the product depends on the amount of spices.

For the marinade, you should take 1 liter of water, 2 tbsp. l. salt, 3 tbsp. tablespoons of sugar, 9% vinegar - 100 g. Cucumbers are pickled in several ways:

1. Pouring boiling water... A marinade or boiling water is poured into a jar with spices and vegetables 2-3 times for 3-5 minutes. Add vinegar one last time and order a jar.
2. Cold way... The marinade is poured into a jar without heating, which is immediately rolled up.
3. Sterilization... Banks with packed contents are sterilized.

Only a few have a sufficiently high acidity to preserve them in in kind at a sterilization temperature not exceeding 100 ° C. These vegetables include rhubarb, tomatoes, and sorrel. Almost all other vegetables do not contain acids at all or contain them in such insignificant quantities that they cannot have a significant effect on microorganisms.

Therefore, at home canning most vegetables have to resort to adding acetic acid when sterilized in boiling water.

In order to stop the development of microbes and protect pickled vegetables from spoilage, it is necessary to significantly increase the acidity. For the preservation of marinades made from various vegetables, it is necessary to introduce acetic acid into them in such an amount that the acidity ready marinade amounted to 1.2 - 1.8%. It should be borne in mind that not only are used for pickling fresh vegetables, but also salty, containing a certain amount of acid formed during fermentation.

The marinades prepared in this way are packaged in barrels or glass bottles. In this form, they will be well stored. The taste of such marinades will be sour and spicy. They are called spicy pickles.

Having the equipment and inventory for the production of canned food, you can get vegetables canned with a very small amount of acetic acid. Such canned food is sometimes called slightly acidic marinades. They add 2 - 3 times less acetic acid than ordinary strong sharp marinades.

In order to preserve such canned food, they must be warmed up to destroy microbes. Sometimes this is the usual sterilization in boiling water, but often it is enough to warm them up for some time at 75 - 85 ° C. As already noted, such heating at a temperature below the boiling point of water is called pasteurization, and the canned food itself is called pasteurized.

Pasteurized or sterilized canned vegetables should contain 0.4 - 0.7% acid and only in some cases up to 1%.

Such slightly acidic marinades taste incomparably better than spicy ones, and they can be stored, if well sealed and sufficiently sterilized, for several months or even years. All kinds canned pickles consist of vegetables, liquid filling, or the actual marinade, and various spices.

Part marinade filling includes acetic acid, salt, sugar. Acetic acid is the main preservative. Salt also helps preserve vegetables and enhances their taste. Sugar is added to improve the flavor.

Cooking the marinade

The water for marinades should be completely clear, colorless, without tastes and odors. Increased iron content in water is often the cause of color and taste changes in pickled vegetables. You should also not use water with high hardness.

Marinade filling consists of salt, sugar and vinegar dissolved in water. Salt and sugar used to prepare the fill must be clean. It is better to take fine salt, in packs, since coarse salt dissolves in water for a long time. In addition, packaged salt is usually cleaner than bulk salt. The filling is prepared with a salt content of 4 to 8%, and sugar from 4 to 10%, depending on the type of vegetables. This means that for 1 liter of water you need to add from 40 to 80 g of pure fine salt and up to 100 g of sugar.

The amount of salt and sugar for each type of pickled vegetables is indicated in the recipes.

Salt and sugar in the specified amount are dissolved in water with heating and stirring. When they are completely dissolved, the solution is boiled for 10-15 minutes.

At this time, a little foam may appear on the surface of the solution, and suspended dark particles between the salt and sugar crystals will become noticeable in the liquid itself. Sometimes there are so many such suspended foreign particles, hairs from burlap and other impurities that the liquid becomes cloudy because of this. To obtain a good transparent filling, after boiling, it is passed through a canvas or flannel.

Pouring is prepared in a container made of non-oxidizing material (stainless steel, enamelled with intact enamel).

Vegetable marinades are prepared with varying amounts of acetic acid. Weakly acidic marinades contain up to 0.6% of it, acidic - 0.6 - 0.9%. Weakly acidic and acidic marinades are cooked in glass containers(cans with a capacity of 0.5 1 l and three-liter bottles) and pasteurized or sterilized. Spicy pickles(with an acetic acid content of up to 1.8%) is prepared in oak or beech barrels with a capacity of 25 - 50 liters or glass bottles, they are not subject to pasteurization.

In the manufacture of marinades, alcohol is used table vinegar, (5% strength) and tartaric (containing 4 - 5% acetic acid). Wine vinegar is considered the best.

Less commonly used food vinegar essence (80% concentration). When using it, you must take precautions as it can cause serious burns. Usually, you have to dilute the food vinegar essence to obtain vinegar of various concentrations.

When working with vinegar essence, it can be added to vegetables in two ways: or prepare the filling liquid (marinade) in advance in separate dishes and then pour the vegetables laid in jars with this liquid, or pour the required amount directly into each jar vinegar essence, and then pour the vegetables with a filling containing sugar and salt. In both cases, you can get a fairly accurate dosage of vinegar essence.

If you need to marinate a lot of vegetables at the same time, then the jelling liquid must be prepared at once on all the jars and poured all of them at once. If only 2 - 3 cans of vegetables are pickled, it is easier to pour strong essence into each can.

Spices should be added to the right amount right to the bottom of the cans. They are almost always added in very small quantities. For convenience, you can not weigh them, but give them according to the account.

In 1 g, on average, there are 25 - 30 grains of black pepper, the same number of grains of allspice, 12 - 18 pcs. carnations.

Features of pickling / canning at home. Of the vegetables, only a few have a sufficiently high acidity that allows them to be preserved in their natural form at a sterilization temperature not exceeding 100 ° C. These vegetables include rhubarb, tomatoes, and sorrel. Almost all other vegetables do not contain acids at all or contain them in such insignificant quantities that they cannot have a significant effect on microorganisms. Therefore, when home canning most vegetables, you have to resort to the addition of acetic acid when sterilized in boiling water. In order to stop the development of microbes and protect pickled vegetables from spoilage, it is necessary to significantly increase the acidity. For the preservation of marinades made from various vegetables, they need ...

Overview

It is easy to distinguish brine from marinade: they pickle in brine, and pickle in marinade. Brine contains a lot of salts, while the marinade is based on vinegar.

Brine

Brine is a liquid of complex composition based on an aqueous solution of table salt, often with the addition of spices and herbs. It is formed as a by-product of production in the process of salting, pickling or soaking products: vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, meat or fish (caviar).

The main component of any brine is a solution of table salt in different concentrations, from 2.5-3% when urinated to 4-8% when fermented and 8-30% when salted. In addition, the composition of the brine, as a rule, includes organic acids that appear during fermentation (if the amount of salt allows), in particular lactic acid and acetic acid, and the latter appears as a result of acetic acid fermentation, and is not introduced during cooking. Also, certain types brine are rich in ions of magnesium and potassium, sodium, vitamin C, copper compounds, essential oils and other extractives that pass into the brine from fermented products and spices. Fish or meat brine also contains soluble proteins. In general, the longer the fermentation process takes, the more substances are transferred from the product to the brine.

It is necessary to distinguish between the brines used and obtained to obtain a new fermented product and the brines that are obtained as a result of canning, with the sole purpose of preserving the product. It is also necessary to distinguish brines from marinades, where the preservative effect occurs due to the artificial creation of an acidic environment.

Marinade

Marinade is a liquid solution or sauce used to sterilize foods as well as improve them. taste, softening and flavoring. Prepare marinades from vinegar, salt, water, spices and other ingredients. Used for preserving vegetables, fruits, meat products, as well as for cooking barbecue, barbecue, etc.

What to use for a hangover: pickle or pickle?

It is the brine that will help with a hangover, because it compensates for the lack of salts in the body. Marinade will only make it worse because it contains vinegar, which in the body is oversupplied as a result of alcohol processing.

Cucumber canning is perhaps the main undertaking summer season... The cucumbers are now small, crunchy, strong - just the right ones for pickling. And it is not difficult to salt them. The main thing you need is a proven recipe and adherence small rules canning. He shared both the first and the second with us Alexey Zharikov, head chef of the Culinaryon culinary studio.

Ten secrets of a chef

Pickles

Photo: shutterstock.com

For salting you will need:

Cucumbers,
- horseradish leaves,
- leaves black currant,
- cherry leaves,
- garlic,
- allspice,
- Carnation,
- Bay leaf,
- dill with an umbrella,
- small heads onions,
- salt,
- sugar,
- 70% vinegar essence,
- you can add grain mustard.

Step 1. At the bottom of a sterilized 3-liter jar, put a couple of pieces of horseradish leaf, 5-6 leaves of black currant and the same amount of cherries, chopped garlic (3-4 cloves), a few peas of allspice and 5-6 cloves, bay leaf, 2-3 umbrellas dill and a few small heads of onions, cut into thick rings.

Step 2. Then you need to put the cucumbers in a jar and pour boiling water over for 15 minutes.

Step 3. Drain the water into a saucepan and add 40 grams of salt and 80 grams of sugar per 1 liter of water.

Step 4. Let the marinade simmer a little, then add 3 teaspoons of 70% vinegar essence per liter of water.

Step 5. Let it stand on the fire for a little more, cover the jar with a sterilized lid, shake it a little so that air bubbles come out, roll up the lid. Turn the jar upside down and wrap it to cool slowly.

Barrel cucumbers

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It is best to cook these cucumbers in a real barrel, but can be made in a bucket or in a jar.

For salting you will need:

Cucumbers,
- horseradish sheets,
- black currant leaves,
- cherry leaves,
- dill umbrellas,
- dill stalks,
- chopped garlic,
- black peppercorns,
- a tablespoon of dry mustard,
- salt,
- water.

Step 1. We sterilize the jar in the usual way.

Step 2. At the bottom of the jar we put horseradish leaves, black currants, cherries, umbrellas and dill stalks. Put chopped garlic, black peppercorns and a tablespoon of dry mustard. Then we put the cucumbers.

Advice: You can overlap the rows with currant and cherry leaves, this option is well suited for pickling in a bucket, we also put the leaves on top.

Step 3. We make brine from raw bottled or well water. Add 40 grams of salt to 1 liter of water. Stir so that all the salt is dispersed, and pour it into the jar, but not to the top, leave 1.5-2 cm, as the brine will ferment and pour out.

Step 4. You only need to close the bank nylon cover, and before closing, be sure to shake and twist the jar so that the air comes out of the voids.

Step 5. Leave the pickles at room temperature for at least 3 days.

The brine will boil, it may foam and leak from under the lid. This is fine. Cucumbers are fermented by natural fermentation, without vinegar or other additives.

Step 6. After three days, the jars must be removed in the cold (cellar or refrigerator) and stored until use.

Pickled cucumbers with cherry tomatoes

Photo: Shutterstock.com

For salting you will need:

Cherry tomatoes,
- cucumbers,
- black pepper (peas),
- hot peppers,
- Dill,
-garlic,
- onion.

For brine for 1 liter of water:

Salt - 1.5-2 tablespoons;
- sugar - 4-4.5 teaspoons;
- table vinegar 9% - 20 ml;
- bay leaves - 2 pcs.

Step 1. Cut the onion into 6-8 slices. Hot peppers cut into half rings a little less than a centimeter. Cut a bunch of dill into 3-4 large pieces.

Step 2. We make the brine in a separate bowl.

Step 3. At the very bottom of the jar, put a small amount of thick branches of dill, 2 cloves of garlic and 2 rings of red pepper. Add a pinch of black peppercorns and one slice of onion.

Step 4. We spread cucumbers in a dense layer. Put cherry tomatoes on top of them, close the gaps between the cucumbers with them. Repeat layer by layer starting with the spices.

Step 5. We continue to stack the food in layers until we reach the top of the can. It is very important that the spices are the last layer. Also for pickling, you can add currant leaves and various herbs, depending on what taste and aroma you want to add to the pickling.

Step 6. Pour in the brine slowly to distribute it evenly throughout the jar.

Step 7. Leave the brine to cool slightly. We close and put the jar in a cool place, preferably in a refrigerator or cellar.

As the names suggest, these two methods differ in the way the products are processed. To put it as briefly as possible, when salting, the hostesses use brine, and when pickling, a special marinade is used. Most often, both methods are used to prepare mushrooms, cucumbers and tomatoes. And in fact, and in another case, it turns out delicious snack... The choice of cooking method depends only on the personal preferences of the chef.

In this article, you will learn how salting and pickling differ, as well as how they are similar to each other.

Salting

This is a food preservation method that uses a saline solution. It is used to preserve mushrooms, cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, squash. Classic pickle is created from a liter of water and fifty grams of table salt. Sometimes housewives change the proportion for specific products. Greens and spices are also added to the salt mixture (usually currant leaves, dill umbrellas, pepper, garlic are used).

The salting technology itself includes the destruction of microbes from the surface of the dishes (s) by placing them in boiling water or steaming. Then the product is put into a solution a couple of times, which is drained after a while. At the end, there is the final filling with mortar, rolling and cooling in an inverted form.

Pickling

The cooking technology of the product is similar to the salting process. In addition, the brine component can exactly duplicate the solution prepared for salting. The difference lies in the "secret" ingredient - a nine percent solution of acetic acid. It is added in an amount of fifty to eighty grams per liter. When you pour vinegar into a solution, you turn the liquid into a real marinade. Sometimes sugar, cranberry or lingonberry berries are added to the filling.

The acid adds an interesting tangy flavor to the product and helps the dish to last much longer. However, for people who have stomach or intestinal problems, it is better to choose salted preserves.

In both cases, the filling liquid is pre-boiled. This is the only way to destroy bacteria that make food "ferment" and deteriorate.

So, the difference between pickling and pickling was the composition of the solution. In the first case, it consists of water, salt and spices. In the second, acetic or citric acid is added to the brine.