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It is rare to meet a person who would not love these juicy vegetables with a peculiar taste and aroma, which, fortunately, are able to ripen in the climatic conditions of most regions of Our Country, even in open ground. In recent years, an unimaginable number of their varieties of different colors have been bred: in addition to the traditional red tomatoes, there are also orange, and yellow, and pink, and even white and almost black. There are also green tomatoes, which, despite their emerald hue when ripe, are very sweet and tasty.
But most gardeners are faced with green tomatoes of a completely different kind, the unripe fruits of ordinary red or pink tomatoes. It may seem to an inexperienced summer resident that they are no good, meanwhile, there are many recipes for pickling and pickling green tomatoes, which result in dishes of a completely different kind than from ripe red or yellow ones. Some consider them even more delicious in taste.
One of the interesting snacks prepared for the winter from green tomatoes is the Danube salad. As the name implies, the origin of the salad comes from Hungary and is to some extent a variation of the famous Hungarian lecho.
Danube salad – pay tribute to traditions
In its most traditional form, the Danube salad is made from red tomatoes. But its modification has existed for a long time and successfully competes with it – green tomato salad. First, the most common version of its preparation will be considered here.
But without the following components, it is impossible to imagine the Danube salad.
- Green tomatoes – 3 kg;
- Carrots – 1 kg;
- Sweet bell pepper – 1 kg;
- Onions – 1 kg;
- Granulated sugar – 300 gr;
- Salt – 60 g;
- Vegetable oil – 300 gr;
- Vinegar 9% – 150 gr;
- Ground black pepper – 2 teaspoons.
Fans of spicy dishes should definitely add a few pods of hot peppers to the recipe. Well, those who are used to doing without it, and so should be satisfied with the sweet and sour taste of the salad.
Tomatoes are cut into pieces of such a size as is more familiar and more convenient for the hostess herself. The main thing is to remove the stalk from them, the taste of which cannot be called attractive.
It is most convenient to grate carrots on a coarse grater. Peppers of both types, remove seeds and tails and cut into rings or straws. Cut onions into halves of rings, and if the onions are small, you can even leave it chopped into rings for beauty.
Transfer all chopped vegetables to one container, mix thoroughly, add the required amount of salt according to the recipe and set aside for 3-4 hours. During this time, the vegetables should release juice.
After the allotted time, add vegetable oil, granulated sugar, spices and vinegar to the container with tomatoes and other vegetables. After that, put the container on medium heat, bring to a boil and, reducing the heat, cook for about 30-40 minutes.
The jars are sterilized in advance by any convenient method, and the salad is laid out on them while still hot. You can store it even in a regular pantry.
New version of salad
According to this recipe, the vegetable in the Danube salad will be cooked with minimal heat treatment, which means that all vitamins and other useful substances will be preserved to a greater extent.
Harvested green tomatoes, sweet peppers, cucumbers, carrots, onions.
All salad vegetables are cut in the same way as in the traditional recipe, put in one container and mixed. Then 100 g of sugar, 60 g of salt, 220 ml of any vegetable oil and 50 ml of 9% table vinegar are added to them.
In this composition, after thorough mixing, the vegetables are left for half an hour, after which they are placed on a very low fire, on which they are slowly brought to a boiling point. Boiling lasts no more than 5 minutes, and the salad is immediately laid out in prepared small sterile jars, hermetically sealed and left upside down to cool under a blanket for at least 24 hours.
Prescription using sterilization
Many housewives consider sterilization to be something very difficult, while others, on the contrary, are inclined to believe that it helps to keep food more reliable than using vinegar in large quantities.
This recipe for a Danube salad with green tomatoes for the winter is practically no different from the first option in terms of the composition of the products. Only the proportions of vinegar are slightly different – only 50 ml of 9% vinegar is used. And vegetable oil is used in much smaller quantities.
So, if you cook all the vegetables as usual and put them in a bowl, then you will need to add salt, sugar, vinegar and spices to them and mix well. Then take clean and sterile jars with a volume of about 1 liter and put vegetable salad in them. After that, pour 1 tablespoon of boiled vegetable oil, a few bay leaves and black peppercorns into each jar.
Now you can cover the jars with lids and sterilize the salad for 20 minutes in boiling water, then roll up and cool, as always under the covers.
Before deciding which of the salad recipes is tastier, it is best to try all of them. After that, you can rightfully reason and choose something that is most consistent with your ideas about delicious food.