Lightly salted cucumbers: a recipe for cooking in cold water

From year to year, the summer season pampers us with various fresh vegetables and fruits. Especially good are fresh and crispy cucumbers, just picked from the garden. When the first excitement on them passes, you begin to want something special, spicy and salty. And here many people remember salted cucumbers – a great snack for many dishes. There are a lot of ways and recipes for making salted cucumbers. Below we will talk about the easiest and fastest of them – the cold method.

Benefits of cold salting

Cold pickling is an easy and quick way to prepare a variety of pickles using cold brine. This method has many advantages over the classic method of preparing lightly salted cucumbers using hot brine. Consider them:

• the taste of cucumbers prepared in this way is more saturated;
• the natural crunch of vegetables is preserved;
• when using cold brine, cucumbers do not lose useful vitamins and minerals;
• no need to cook the brine for a long time;
• simple cooking technology that does not take much time.

Having listed all the advantages of the cold method of preparing lightly salted cucumbers, one cannot fail to mention the only minus – you can store the finished snack only in the refrigerator and not more than 1 week. But given the taste of ready-made salted cucumbers, you don’t have to worry about them spoiling.

But you still have to store them in a cool place.

Criteria affecting the final result

cucumbers

Before you cook salted cucumbers at home with cold brine, you need to choose the right fruits. It is on this that the final result of salting will depend. Cucumbers for a future snack should have the following criteria:

1. Be a pickling variety. Such cucumbers are small in size, and there are small tubercles on their skin. Smooth and large fruits for these purposes are absolutely not suitable. Many gardeners speak well of the Nezhinsky variety of pickled cucumbers.

   

2. Have the same dimensions. It is important to remember that the smaller the size of the cucumbers, the faster they will pickle.
3. Be fresh and crispy. For the preparation of lightly salted cucumbers, fresh cucumbers, just taken from the garden, are ideal, but purchased ones can also be used. The main thing is that they should not lie down and soft.

Salt

Despite the fact that we will cook pickles lightly salted, salt is a very important ingredient. When preparing any pickle, whether it be salted cucumbers or other snacks, you need to choose only coarse rock salt.

Finely ground salt, as well as iodized salt, are not suitable for these purposes. When using them, cucumbers will lose their crunch and become soft.

Crockery

An important condition for obtaining delicious salted cucumbers is cooking utensils. Of course, those who have an enamel pan at home have nothing to think about – they should take it. But for those who do not have such a pot lying around at home, the choice of dishes for salting can be a problem.

In addition to an enamel pot, you can use any glass or ceramic container. The main thing is that it should be deep enough. An ordinary glass jar is perfect for these purposes. But from the use of plastic or metal utensils, you should categorically refrain.

It will be enough just to rinse it thoroughly. But for spinning lightly salted cucumbers, you can’t do without jar sterilization. The video will tell you more about sterilization methods:

Best recipes

These recipes have long been considered classics for making this lightly salted snack using cold brine. The preparation will not take much time, and the result will not keep you waiting.

This will allow them to retain their crunch and density.

The most popular and versatile recipe

For its preparation we will need:

• cucumbers – how much will fit into the selected container;
• dill;
• garlic;
• leaves of horseradish, cherry and currant;
• pepper pods – can be replaced with peppercorns;
• water;
• salt – for each liter of 70 grams.

This is a complete list of ingredients, but if something is not at hand, you should not postpone cooking. Even if there are only cucumbers, water, salt and pepper in the kitchen.

Before cooking, cucumbers should be washed and soaked for 2 hours in cold water.

While the cucumbers are soaking, let’s do the rest of the preparations. To do this, wash all the available greens, and peel the garlic from the skins. Then all the ingredients must be divided into two parts, and one of them put in a clean container for salting. After that, cucumbers are placed in the container, and only then the rest of the ingredients.

Now you can prepare the brine. There is, perhaps, nothing better than this. All that is needed for this is to dissolve salt in cold water. To speed up the process, you can stir it intensively.

Prepared brine must be poured over all the fruits. It is very important that the cucumbers are completely covered with brine. Now the container with cucumbers can be left alone at room temperature for a day or a little longer, depending on the degree of readiness.

Determining the readiness of salted cucumbers is very simple.

Also, the criterion of readiness is a characteristic low-salt smell. Ready cucumbers should be stored only in the refrigerator, otherwise they will turn into ordinary salted ones.

Spicy salted cucumbers

This recipe is perfect for spicy lovers. To prepare it you need:

• kilogram of cucumbers;
• juice of half a lemon;
• a tablespoon of mustard;
• 2 teaspoons of sugar;
• half a teaspoon of salt.

As in the previous recipe, the cucumbers must be washed and left in water for 1-2 hours. After that, they must be cut into circles. Should not be cut very thin. The approximate thickness of the slices should be from 0,5 to 1 centimeter.

Now we need to prepare the brine. There is no water in this recipe, so you need to stir the salt and sugar in the juice of half a lemon. Mustard should also be added there.

After that, you can add brine to the cucumbers. But it should be borne in mind that the prepared brine will not be able to completely cover all the cucumbers. Therefore, the container with them must be covered with a lid and shaken well so that the brine is evenly distributed between the slices. It remains only to remove the container in the refrigerator.

Salted and spicy cucumbers prepared according to this recipe can be served at the table for a day. If you need a ready-made snack earlier, then you can leave the fruits to be salted at room temperature for a period of 1 hour to 6 hours. It is important to ensure that they do not become too salty.

Conclusion

Salted cucumbers prepared according to these recipes will not leave anyone indifferent. In such a short time they turn out very tasty and crispy. But in order for them to remain as tasty for a longer time, they must be stored only in the refrigerator.