“Rivers of milk, jelly banks”, “seventh water on jelly” – these and other expressions are familiar to many from childhood. They are about jelly – an amazing product that you can cook yourself, or you can do it easier and cook jelly from powder.
Kissel from briquette or concentrated powder
The word “jelly” is difficult to translate from Russian into any other language. The traditional Russian dessert drink has a long history, it is mentioned in chronicles that are more than 1000 years old, while still not losing popularity.
Traditionally, jelly was cooked from oats, rye or wheat, but it became similar to the modern one in those days when potatoes appeared in Russia – then they began to use potato starch in the preparation of jelly.
In addition to the fact that jelly is a hearty and tasty drink, it has many useful properties. Due to the starch content in it, it retains a large amount of vitamins from those berries and juices from which it is prepared.
In addition, it is great for people with high acidity, gastritis or stomach ulcers.
However, this all concerns natural jelly, prepared independently, without the use of semi-finished products. Nowadays, stores sell many types of jelly in powder or in a briquette – it is much easier to prepare it, but when choosing such jelly, carefully read the composition: it should contain natural extracts of fruits and berries. Without them, there will be no benefit from the drink.
To save housewives time and effort, manufacturers produce jelly in powder. As a rule, it is a granular product containing starch, sugar, citric acid and flavorings.
How to cook purchased jelly should be said on the package, but there are some general recommendations.
If you do not know how to make jelly from powder, follow this recipe: dilute dry jelly powder (about 250 g) with 1/2 cup of cold water and mix thoroughly so that there are no lumps. Then put a saucepan with a liter of water on the fire, bring to a boil. Pour the jelly concentrate into boiling water in a thin stream, stirring continuously. Then wait for the water to boil again. Then let the jelly cool down and you can drink it.
Traditionally in Russia they did not drink jelly, but ate it. It was considered a kind of liquid dessert, so if you make the jelly thicker, you can also try to arrange it in cups and eat it as a dessert.
How to cook jelly from a pack should also be told on the package. But if there is not a word about this, proceed in the same way as in the previous recipe, only first grind the briquetted jelly to powder.
There are a couple of tricks on how to make ready-made jelly even tastier: add fresh berries or pieces of fruit or a couple of spoons of jam to it.