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Autumn is coming and the time has come for the production of tasty, healthy and interesting preparations from cabbage – a vegetable that not so long ago was in first place in terms of prevalence in Our Country. Recently, he has a competitor – potatoes. Nevertheless, such a variety of salads, snacks and winter preparations, as for cabbage, perhaps does not exist for any other vegetable crop. What they just don’t do with it: they salt, and ferment, and pickle, and each type of blank has its own advantages.
What is the difference between salting and marinating
In general, all known methods of preparing food for the winter, such as: salting, pickling, urinating and pickling, are based on the action of acid. Only in the first three variants, lactic acid is produced naturally during fermentation under the influence of lactic acid bacteria. But when you pickle cabbage, you resort to the help of various acids from the outside world: most often acetic, sometimes tartaric, citric or malic. The very effect of conservation is achieved due to the fact that there is a shift in the level of acidity, which has a detrimental effect on the reproduction of unfavorable microorganisms. And in this sense, there is not much difference in what kind of vinegar is used to preserve the blanks. The use of ordinary table vinegar is only a habit, since it is most often found on sale.
So, for the manufacture of salted cabbage, from 6 to 30% of salt can be used. It has a very versatile effect on the finished product.
- Firstly, the characteristics of the taste of the preform are changed and, as a rule, improved.
- Secondly, fermentation processes are accelerated in salted cabbage due to the active release of plant cell sap, which is rich in sugars.
- Thirdly, since salt suppresses the vital activity of extraneous microflora, it has some preservative effect on cabbage preparations.
But if the cabbage was salted using vinegar, then this process has more right to be called pickling. However, many housewives use the terms salting, pickling and pickling, without making much difference between them, and even implying the same process by them – most often harvesting cabbage for the winter with salt and vinegar.
Moreover, since any salting of cabbage without vinegar makes the canning process protracted in time – you have to wait from five to ten days – the addition of vinegar significantly speeds up the receipt of the finished product, which in terms of its taste can practically not differ from what is being prepared for a long time.
That is why in our time of high-speed technologies, recipes for pickling cabbage using vinegar are very popular.
All basic proportions when using other varieties of vinegar for blanks remain the same.
Cabbage crispy and spicy
This option for making salted cabbage can be called universal, since it is quite suitable even for children, but when using garlic and red pepper, men will really like it.
The main ingredients for 2 kg of white cabbage are 0,4 kg of carrots and apples. For a spicier version, add 5 cloves of garlic and 1-2 chili peppers.
The marinade has the following composition:
- Half a liter of water;
- 150 ml of vegetable oil;
- 150 ml of vinegar;
- 100 grams of granulated sugar;
- 60 grams of salt;
- Bay leaf, peppercorns and cloves – to taste.
First you can start preparing the marinade. To do this, the water is brought to a boil, all the components according to the recipe are placed in it and everything is boiled together for 5-7 minutes.
At the same time, all the leaves unsuitable for salting should be cut off from the cabbage: polluted, old, withered, green.
Cabbage can be chopped in any way convenient for you. Pepper and garlic after removing all unnecessary: husks, seed chambers, cut into narrow and thin slices.
All vegetables are well mixed and tightly packed in a glass jar. After the marinade boils enough, it is carefully poured into this jar to the very neck. The jar can be covered with a lid, but not tightly and put to cool. After a day, the cabbage preparation is ready for use.
Cauliflower with Vinegar
White cabbage is the undisputed leader among the large cabbage family in terms of the number of dishes made from it. But other varieties of cabbage can be just as tasty. So, if you try to pickle cauliflower with vinegar according to the recipe below, then, no doubt, you will surprise and delight your family and friends with the original taste of an unusual preparation.
Cauliflower will need about 1 kg. The head of cabbage must be washed well and divided into small parts, no larger than 5 cm. Be sure to add one large carrot, which, after peeling, cut into thin circles. One large bell pepper is freed from seeds and cut into strips.
Also, this preparation requires the addition of stem and root celery (about 50-80 grams). However, it can always be replaced with root and leaf parsley or other herbs of your choice. Cut celery or parsley into small pieces of arbitrary shape. If you do not try to make such a preparation with an eye on long-term winter storage, then be sure to try adding two onions to this recipe. Onions, as usual, are peeled and cut into thin half-rings.
To make pickled cauliflower, a fairly standard filling is used:
- Water – three glasses;
- Vinegar – ¾ cup;
- Sugar – ¾ cup;
- Salt – 2 teaspoons;
- Spices: allspice, cloves, bay leaf – to taste.
Mix all ingredients with water and bring to a boil. At the same time, take clean sterilized jars and put vegetables in them in layers: a layer of cauliflower, then carrots, again a colored variety, then sweet peppers, celery, and so on. When the jar is full of vegetables up to the shoulders, pour hot marinade over its contents.
After cooling, it is advisable to keep the jar of cauliflower in a cool place for about two days. After insisting, you can enjoy a slightly sweet with a slight sourness, the taste of pickled cauliflower.
If you like this recipe for salting cauliflower so much that you want to spin a few jars for the winter for long-term storage, then you should do the following.
Firstly, it is better not to use onions in the manufacture, as they do not contribute to the long-term preservation of products. And secondly, after pouring vegetables with boiling brine with vinegar, put jars of cauliflower to be sterilized in boiling water for at least 20 minutes. After sterilization, cauliflower jars can be screwed on with both traditional metal lids and threaded lids.
In this device at a temperature of +240 ° C, sterilization of jars of cauliflower for 10-15 minutes will be enough to keep them all winter.
Any housewife is sure to pick cabbage in the fall, so perhaps the above recipes for preparations with vinegar will come in handy not only to provide your family with vitamins in the winter, but also to decorate the table during the holidays.
