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A variety of pickles have long served as the main addition to the winter menu, when it was very difficult to find fresh vegetables and fruits on sale. Now times have changed and in any small supermarket you can find a fairly large assortment of fruits, berries and vegetables at any time of the year. True, this is in the city, but in the village, most residents still try to stock up on tasty and healthy pickles for the winter: cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples. Fortunately, in rural conditions there is always a cellar where you can easily save all these goodies until spring. But even in the city, a rare housewife will remain indifferent to the opportunity to cook a traditional folk dish for her family: pickled or salted vegetables. After all, if you wish, there is always a place to store them: both on the balcony and in the refrigerator.
Pickled green tomatoes can be called a traditional snack, because in cold summer conditions, tomatoes rarely have time to fully ripen. Therefore, most gardeners have a lot of bushes with still green tomatoes in the beds at the end of summer. But zealous owners should not lose anything – it is from green tomatoes that you can cook a dish that is amazing in taste and aroma, which will not at all look like blanks from ripe red tomatoes. Its recipe with a photo is described in detail below.
Simple old recipe
For pickling green tomatoes for the winter, all the nuances matter, so you need to disassemble everything in stages.
Preparation of the main raw material
Tomatoes of varying degrees of ripeness are suitable for pickling – pink, brown, white and even completely green. But before pickling, they must be divided by variety and degree of maturity.
The tomatoes themselves must be thoroughly washed with a brush, first in cold, and then rinsed in warm water. Then the tomatoes are dried on a towel and freed from the stalks.
Dishes for sourdough
In modern home conditions, rarely anyone has a real oak barrel, but an enameled bucket, and in extreme cases, an enameled pan, there is probably everyone. Since the stores now have a very large selection of the most diverse dishes for every taste – if you like pickling vegetables, you can purchase separate containers for cucumbers, tomatoes and cabbage for the future.
If you are going to salt green tomatoes for the first time, then for the first time you can use ordinary three-liter glass jars.
Whatever container you choose, it must be washed clean and scalded with boiling water immediately before placing the tomatoes inside.
Salt and spices
What else do you need for sourdough green tomatoes? Of course, salt, and it should be rock, without additives.
If you count on the fact that you will collect 5 kg of tomatoes for pickling, then for the brine you will need 5 liters of water and 350-400 grams of salt. The preparation of the brine must be approached with all the attention: after all, the safety of pickled tomatoes directly depends on its quality.
Add the required amount of salt to the required amount of water according to the recipe and bring the brine to a boil. After making sure that the salt is completely dissolved, cool the brine.
Now it is necessary to say a few words about spices and herbs. It is they who fill the finished dish with the most amazing aroma and taste, thanks to which green pickled tomatoes are so popular.
The minimum required set of spices according to this recipe consists of:
- Dill (greens and inflorescences) – 100 g;
- Garlic – 1-2 heads;
- Horseradish leaves – 3-4 pieces;
- Cherry and black currant leaves – 10-15 pieces each;
- Oak leaves – 5 pieces;
- Tarragon – 20 g;
- Basil – 20 g;
- Red hot ground pepper – half a teaspoon.
It is advisable to rinse the spices under running water, dry and mix together in one bowl.
Fermentation process
Now you have everything you need to ferment green tomatoes the way it was done in the old days. Put about one third of all spices on the bottom in a scalded dish. Then the tomatoes are placed on top.
After laying several layers of tomatoes, fall asleep them again with the second third of all the spices. Lay the tomatoes again and cover them with the remaining spicy leaves and spices on top. Pour the brine on top, it must necessarily cover all the tomatoes.
Now it is necessary to withstand the cooked tomatoes for 5-6 days at room conditions, after which it must be taken out in the cold. After 20-30 days, the dish can be tasted, although the tomatoes can fully ferment only after 2 months. In the cellar or on a non-freezing balcony, pickled tomatoes according to this recipe can be stored until spring.
stuffed tomatoes
There is another interesting and simple green tomato sourdough recipe that uses fruits cut into two halves. It will be interesting for beginners, because it allows you to cook a very interesting and tasty dish in small quantities, so you can simply store it in the refrigerator.
For 2 kg of green tomatoes you will need:
- 5 pods of sweet bell pepper;
- 2 heads of garlic;
- 50 grams of dill;
- 50 grams of parsley or cilantro;
- 50 grams of basil.
Brine can be made in a similar way – 1 grams of salt dissolve in 50 liter of water.
First, all ingredients, except for tomatoes, are passed through a meat grinder.
Then the tomatoes are cut in half and neatly stacked in a single layer in a fermentation container, cut side up. Sprinkle with chopped spices and top with other halves of tomatoes. Sprinkle again with spices and chopped tomatoes are laid again and so on until all the products run out.
All layers are filled with cold brine and a plate with a load is placed on top. Green tomatoes stand in the room for about 3 days, after which it is advisable to transfer them to a cold place. A delicious tomato appetizer will be ready in 15-20 days. It can be stored in the refrigerator for several months.
Try to recreate the atmosphere of an old feast in your family with a variety of natural pickles and the recipes described above will help you with this.
