Contents
Do you know that soaked apples restore intestinal microflora better than yogurt or bifidobacteria? They are also useful with a high content of vitamins, microelements, they help the immune system, strengthen teeth and hair, restore lost elasticity to blood vessels. This list goes on. What can I say, our ancestors were wise people. Previously, in every cellar there was a wooden barrel filled with pickled apples, but do all our contemporaries know their taste?
Maybe it’s enough to buy rubber fruits in the store in winter, or juices restored from powder, which do not bring benefits, are expensive, and, frankly, they don’t taste very good? Let’s make pickled apples at home, fortunately, there are enough recipes. Owners of private houses will be able to cook them the old fashioned way, with whole barrels, and city dwellers, for lack of space or suitable containers, in jars.
What is urination
Before we tell you how to make pickled apples, let’s understand the process. This old, undeservedly forgotten method of harvesting berries and fruits is based on lactic acid fermentation, like pickling vegetables. You can soak apples, pears, plums, cranberries, lingonberries or even physalis. Unlike vegetables, fruits and berries contain a lot of sugar, which during fermentation turns into more than just lactic acid. It is converted into other preservatives – alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Homemade pickled fruits are the result of exposure to lactic acid, alcohol and carbon dioxide, retain their nutritional properties, have a refreshing taste, and are stored for a long time.
The main rules of urination
Wetting apples is not much more difficult than making jam or preserving fruits, you just need to take into account some important points.
- In order for the yeast that causes alcoholic fermentation to work successfully, and at the same time harmful microorganisms are suppressed, apples must be quite acidic.
- The brine with which the soaked fruits are poured should have a temperature not exceeding 30 degrees. Otherwise, the apples will get a very unpleasant aftertaste. It is the violation of technology that explains the disgusting smell emanating from the fruits, sometimes found on the market.
- Only healthy removable apples of late autumn or winter varieties with dense sour pulp are suitable for urination, for example, Antonovka, Pepin, Anis. Of the early fruits, only white filling or Papirovka are suitable.
- In one barrel or jar, only apples of the same variety can be wetted.
Peeling apples according to an old recipe
In this way, pickled apples at home were made by our great-grandmothers. If you have an oak barrel, then there is nothing complicated in it, believe me, it is much easier to get wheat or rye straw than you might think, there would be a desire.
Preparation of raw materials and containers
These soaked apples in 3-liter jars cannot be prepared; only oak, beech or linden barrels, large-volume enamelware or large glass bottles with a wide neck are suitable. Collect the fruits of winter varieties, let them rest for 15-20 days. Go through, rejecting rotten, broken, wormy and sick.
Soak the barrels until the leak stops. Soak new oak trees in water for 2-3 weeks and change it every 2-3 days. This is necessary in order to remove tannins before cooking apples. After soaking, the barrels are filled with a boiling soda solution and rolled. On a bucket of boiling water take 20-25 g of caustic soda or soda ash – 50-60 g.
Leave the solution for 15-20 minutes, pour it out, rinse several times with cold clean water.
Before laying the fruit, scald it with boiling water.
Before you cook pickled apples in a glass or enamel bowl, wash it thoroughly with hot water and soda and rinse well with cold water. Immediately before laying the fruit, scald with boiling water.
Product List
In order to get 100 kg of pickled fruits, you need:
- fresh apples – 107 kg;
- sugar – 2 kg;
- salt – 1 kg;
- malt – 0,5 kg (or 1 kg of rye flour);
- mustard powder – 150-200 g.
You will also need clean wheat or rye straw for urinating.
Fruit urination
If you are using malt (sprouted barley), pour it into a saucepan, pour 5 liters of cold water and boil for 15 minutes. Instead, you can use rye flour to soak apples. First, carefully dilute it with 1-2 parts of cold water, and then brew it with boiling water. Add salt, sugar and mustard.
We are preparing a container for urinating fruits. Pour boiling water over it, line the bottom with washed and scalded straw. Place cleanly washed apples firmly on it. As the barrel fills, line its walls with straw. When the urination container is full of fruits, place dry wheat or rye stalks on top.
If you are making pickled fruits in a barrel, seal it and pour in the filling through the tongue and groove. Fill a glass or enamel container through the top.
For initial fermentation, soak apples for a week at a temperature of about 20 degrees. Then transfer the container to the basement, cellar or other cold room, top up the filling, plug the tongue hole at the barrel. If soaked apples are cooked in another container, cover it tightly. If necessary, coat the lid around the edge with a thick layer of dough.
After 1,5-2 months, eat delicious, healthy pickled apples.
Additives to Improve Taste
If you line each layer of fruit with straw, this will improve their taste.
To give a special flavor to pickled apples, you can add:
- currant and cherry leaves;
- sprigs of celery or parsnips.
To make a truly royal dish out of soaked apples, you can replace sugar with honey (1,5-2 kg). Of course, this pleasure is not cheap and only beekeepers can afford it painlessly.
Soaked in a jar white filling
This recipe for soaked apples at home can be prepared by residents of city apartments, and not necessarily from white filling. Any small fruits that easily pass into the neck of the jar will do.
Of course, if you really find fault, then these apples can only be called soaked with a stretch. But their taste is similar, and you don’t really have to choose, you won’t drag an oak barrel into a one-room apartment, and even to some floor there.
Product List
For a two-liter jar you will need:
- apples – 1 kg;
- salt – 1 tbsp. a spoon;
- sugar – 2 tbsp. spoons;
- vinegar – 3 tbsp. spoons;
- horseradish leaf – 1 pc.;
- cherry leaf – 3-4 pieces;
- cloves – 2 pcs.
Important! Urine apples should only be of the highest quality – whole, without the slightest flaw.
Fruit urination
Sterilize and dry the jars.
Wash the apples, if the tails are preserved, it is not necessary to cut them off.
Place washed cherry and horseradish leaves and clove buds on the bottom of each urination container.
Lay out the fruits so that they lie tightly in the jars, but do not push them by force, otherwise they will wrinkle.
Pour boiling water to the top, cover with a lid and a warm blanket or terry towels, let stand for 5-10 minutes.
Pour water into a saucepan, boil. Repeat procedure.
When you drain the water from the jar for the second time, while boiling, add vinegar, salt, sugar to it.
Pour, roll up, put upside down and wrap in an old blanket.
This recipe for pickled apples takes some liberties. You can add a currant leaf or replace sugar with honey.
Conclusion
We have given only two recipes for pickled apples. We hope you enjoy them. Enjoy your meal!