Cheremsha for the winter

Residents of the central regions of Our Country have a rather weak idea of ​​what wild garlic actually looks like, for which southern merchants often give out hard pickled garlic arrows in the bazaars. But real wild garlic is a delicate and very fragrant greenery, so rich in vitamins and other useful substances that alone it is able to cope with all spring ailments. Preparing wild garlic for the winter is not difficult at all – there are many options for delicious and quick recipes for its preparation. It is much more difficult to find it for sale, especially in those regions where it is not found in the wild.

How can you save wild garlic for the winter

Ramson is the common name for two varieties of perennial onions, bear and victorious. They also call it a flask. This amazing plant has also been nicknamed wild garlic by many, for the obvious garlic flavor that comes from all of its parts. Although in the very taste of wild garlic there is absolutely no bitterness characteristic of many representatives of the onion family. It tastes delicate, although spicy with a spicy tinge. This herb acquires special value due to the fact that it appears in early spring, at a time when there is practically no fresh greenery in the gardens, and even in nature. In the Caucasus, it appears in February-March, in Siberia, the Urals and the Far East later, closer to April. The most tender are young wild garlic sprouts, when the plant has not yet fully opened its leaves. At this stage, it is not easy to distinguish it from other representatives of corms, especially poisonous lilies of the valley. Therefore, when collecting, you must be extremely careful. Garlic aroma can help in identifying wild garlic, which will not allow you to confuse it with other plants. But the period of collecting delicate fragrant grass is not too long. Its leaves grow quite quickly, then become slightly coarse, becoming sinewy, and the plant begins to lay buds. Therefore, in order to prepare for the winter from the so-called wild garlic – wild garlic, one should not particularly relax. After all, unlike many other spicy herbs, including perennials, wild garlic does not grow by order at any time. If the moment of harvesting is missed, you will have to wait for next spring.

There are many ways to prepare wild garlic for the winter. The most popular are pickled wild garlic, as well as pickled and salted. These types of blanks allow you to keep wild garlic for the winter, almost fresh, with its inherent aroma and tenderness of the stems.

For those who are not too fond of garlic flavor, you can try to dry wild garlic.

There are many recipes for making all kinds of sauces and seasonings for the winter with this unique spring herb.

It is very easy to prepare wild garlic in a frozen form, and there are tricks that allow you to keep it in such a state that after defrosting it will be just like fresh.

Healthy tinctures are also made from it.

When preparing wild garlic for the winter, you should not get too carried away with a variety of additives and spices that can kill the aroma and taste of this herb. Only tomatoes and garlic are ideally combined with it, and the addition of the latter in a small amount further enhances and emphasizes the taste of the finished dish.

How to freeze wild garlic for the winter

Freezing is rightly considered the easiest way to harvest wild garlic for the winter. After all, this does not require anything extra, all items can be found in any home: an ordinary freezer, a sharp knife and plastic bags.

The most important thing is to carefully and properly prepare the greens for freezing. First, the grass is washed conscientiously, using either running water for this, or changing the liquid in the basin several times. After all, both stems and leaves are usually quite heavily polluted with the earth from which they are practically dug up. Then the grass is sorted out, rejecting withered, rotten and otherwise damaged specimens.

Before freezing, the grass must be well dried, for which it is laid out in one layer on a paper or cloth towel and left in this form for several hours in a place closed from sunlight.

Then the leaves themselves and the stems are cut across into not very large pieces, 1-2 cm long.

Then you can freeze wild garlic in two main ways. Moreover, the further use of the herb depends on the chosen method of freezing.

Freezing wild garlic in bags

Dried and chopped greens are distributed into small portion packages so that the contents of one package can be consumed at a time.

It is good if the packages have zip fasteners. If ordinary bags are used, without fasteners, then after laying the grass inside, their edges are carefully sealed (you can do this with foil and an iron). This procedure is necessary not only for better preservation of the workpiece. Due to its garlic flavor, all foods in the freezer can smell of wild garlic if the bags are not sealed tightly. By the way, for more compact storage, it is better to roll bags with greens into tubes, label each one and place it in the freezer in this form.

When using this method of freezing, of course, part of the taste is lost, but all valuable elements are preserved, primarily vitamin C.

But there is another trick that allows you to retain the taste and aroma of fresh wild garlic with the loss of a certain amount of useful substances. To do this, cut grass almost immediately after washing is dipped in a colander for literally 30-60 seconds in boiling water. Then they are cooled, slightly dried, as usual on a towel, and distributed in portioned packages.

Wild garlic harvested in this way can be added after defrosting to vegetable salads, to any first and second courses where garlic is required. In addition, you can make a delicious solo salad with a boiled egg and sour cream or mayonnaise from thawed wild garlic. Thawed greens can be used both as a filling for pies, and for adding to scrambled eggs, meatballs, zrazy. They even add it to bread dough.

Cheremsha, frozen in ground form

It is very useful to freeze some of the greens in ground form. To do this, chopped grass is passed through a meat grinder or crushed in a blender bowl. The result is a thick and fairly concentrated puree. It is laid out in molds for ice or for baking muffins. It is better to use the smallest molds so that you do not have to cut them into pieces later.

All molds with wild garlic are placed in the freezer for 12-24 hours. After that, the frozen pieces of greens are removed from the molds and transferred to hermetically sealed bags.

Frozen chopped grass is very pleasant to add to a variety of sauces and gravies for second courses. It is suitable as additives and for first courses, especially for puree soups.

With further heat treatment of dishes, wild garlic puree can be added to them without even defrosting.

Harvesting cherry trees for the winter: drying

During the drying process, wild garlic greens lose their aroma significantly, but this can even be an advantage for those who find its smell too sharp. Most of the nutrients are preserved, and dried wild garlic can be used in the same way as other dry aromatic herbs: for adding to soups, seasonings, sauces, pastries.

1. The leaves are also thoroughly washed, dried on a towel.
2. Then cut into pieces and placed on a pallet in a warm, dry room without light.
3. You can dry the greens by spreading it on pallets of an electric dryer at a temperature of about + 35-40 ° C.

How to cook wild garlic pesto with nuts for the winter

Among all the recipes for wild garlic preparations for the winter, Pesto sauce is one of the most original. Traditional Italian pesto sauce is usually made from basil. But the attractive aroma and taste of wild garlic make it a wonderful base for this sauce.

You need:

• about 500 g of fresh wild garlic;
• 4 tbsp. l. pine nuts (can be replaced with walnuts or almonds);
• 150-200 ml of olive oil;
• 1 tsp. salts;
• ½ lemon;
• ½ tsp ground black pepper;
• 3 Art. l. grated hard Parmesan cheese.

Manufacture:

1. At the first stage, it is important to thoroughly rinse the greens from the ground, rinse and then dry it no less scrupulously. If moisture remains on the shoots, the sauce will not be able to last for a long time.
2. If using walnuts or almonds, they should be chopped into as small pieces as possible. For better preservation of the workpiece, the nuts are lightly roasted in a dry and clean frying pan.
3. Pine nuts themselves are very oily and tender, so they don’t need to be crushed much, let alone roasted.
4. The cheese is ground on a fine grater.
5. Of course, if you follow the old customs of traditional Italian cuisine, then the greens must be ground in a wooden mortar. But for a modern recipe, it is enough to pass it through a meat grinder.
6. Squeeze juice from half a lemon.
7. Mix well chopped wild garlic, nuts, cheese, lemon juice in a deep container, add salt, pepper and olive oil.
8. Thoroughly beat the resulting mixture.
9. The finished sauce is laid out in small sterile jars, poured with olive oil on top, twisted with sterile lids.
10. In this state, the sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for about a year.

We prepare wild garlic in oil for the winter

Wild garlic can be preserved in a very simple way, which, nevertheless, is one of the most reliable, allowing you to do without heat treatment.

You need:

• 0,5 kg of leaves and stems;
• 1 tsp. salts;
• 0,5 liters of olive or other vegetable oil.

Manufacture:

1. The stems and leaves of wild garlic are washed in cold water and dried.
2. Fold in a blender or food processor, add salt and vegetable oil.
3. Turn into puree.
4. They are laid out in sterile jars so that all the greens are covered with oil on top.
5. They are twisted with boiled lids and stored in a cold place (cellar, refrigerator).

How to cook wild garlic in tomato for the winter

Ramson with tomato is a classic combination that can also be used for a great preparation for the winter.

To prepare wild garlic for the winter with tomato, you will need:

• 1 kg of wild garlic greens;
• 200 g tomato paste or 300 g homemade tomato juice or sauce made from twisted tomatoes.
• 1 Art. l salts;
• 1 Art. liter. sugar;
• 250 ml of aromatic vegetable oil.

Manufacture:

1. The greens are sorted, thoroughly washed and dried.
2. Selected stems and leaves are crushed through a meat grinder.
3. Mix with tomato paste or sauce, add vegetable oil, salt, sugar.
4. The mixture is heated to a temperature of + 100 ° C and boiled for exactly 1 minute.
5. Lay out in small glass containers and sterilize under covered lids for 20 minutes.
6. Roll up and put in winter storage.

Recipe for winter wild garlic with lard

Very simply and quickly, you can cook a delicious putty of wild garlic with lard for the winter. The result is a fantastically tasty preparation that can be spread on sandwiches or added to any dish if desired.

You need:

• 400 g pork fat without meat and peel;
• 200 g fresh herbs wild garlic;
• 50 g salt;
• spices to taste and desire.

Manufacture:

1. Salo is cut into small pieces, sprinkled with salt on all sides and, put into a small glass dish, left in a room under a lid for a day.
2. The next day, excess salt is shaken off the fat and passed through a meat grinder.
3. In the meantime, they sort, wash and dry the wild garlic greens.
4. Also passed through a meat grinder.

   

5. Grated lard is mixed with wild garlic puree, if desired, spices are added to taste.
6. The resulting mass is laid out in sterile jars.
7. Under sterile lids, the workpiece is stored in the refrigerator for a year.

Shelf life of wild garlic blanks

Whatever recipe is chosen, you should not save the wild garlic preparation for more than 1 year. Most likely, after this period, the aroma of the herb will already be lost, and the taste will leave much to be desired. It is wiser to replenish stocks every spring with the help of young fresh grass.

Conclusion

There are many ways to prepare wild garlic for the winter, so such a vitamin supplement should always be present in the daily and festive menu. In this case, many dishes will be able to sparkle with new colors, and diseases are likely to recede into the background.