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Overseas caviar has enjoyed well-deserved popularity among the people for many decades, both for its taste, and for its usefulness, and for its versatility in use. After all, it can be used both as a side dish and as an independent dish. It is also great as a quick snack, and even children who do not always favor healthy vegetables like it.
There are many ways to prepare zucchini caviar; tomato paste is usually used in the basic recipe. But zucchini caviar with tomatoes plucked from your garden cannot be compared with purchased tomato paste. Indeed, in recent years, the quality of store products leaves much to be desired, and if you grow vegetables on your site, then it is from them that you need to prepare the most delicious and healthy preparations for the winter for your family, using them to the maximum.
Main recipe
The following ingredients are always the basis of delicious zucchini caviar:
- Medium-sized zucchini – 3-4 pieces;
- Carrots – 1 large or 2 medium;
- Onion – 1 large onion or several small ones;
- Ripe tomatoes – 2-3 pieces;
- Vegetable oil – 2-3 tbsp. spoons;
- Salt, sugar, spices – to your taste.
In order to prepare zucchini caviar with tomatoes for the winter, you will need to increase the amount of ingredients by at least 2-3 times, and maybe more, depending on the appetites of your family.
Since it is tomatoes that give the necessary pungency and piquancy to zucchini caviar, unless, of course, you are fond of hot peppers, then special attention should be paid to them. Before cooking, it is necessary to remove the skin from the tomatoes and the easiest way to do this is by scalding the tomatoes with boiling water beforehand. After removing the skin, the tomatoes are cut into pieces of any shape and size and placed on a small fire in a frying pan with vegetable oil preheated to a boil. The entire tomato mass is stewed until it becomes more or less homogeneous. The juice in the process of quenching should evaporate and the mass will become relatively thick and viscous. The resulting tomato paste is put aside and the rest of the vegetables are taken care of.
Zucchini should be peeled and de-seeded if they are mature enough. Very young zucchini is enough just to wash well and cut off the stalk from them.
It is only necessary to clean them from the hard peel and seeds inside the fruit.
Onions and carrots are also peeled, and all vegetables are cut into small cubes. Then, in a deep frying pan, it is necessary to heat the oil until a white haze appears and fry the onion in it first to a translucent state, and then the carrots until it becomes golden in color.
Zucchini are fried in a separate pan. If you are cooking large volumes of caviar, then it is better to fry in one layer in small portions. The taste of the finished product will improve significantly. But on the figure, numerous frying will not be reflected in the best way. Therefore, if every calorie is dear to you, then the best option would be to bake zucchini, cut into long pieces lengthwise, in an oven or on a grill. Already after baking, zucchini can be chopped both with a knife and with a blender or meat grinder.
When all vegetables, including zucchini, are fried or baked, they can be mixed in one large deep bowl with a thick bottom. It is necessary to stew zucchini caviar in this form until it thickens – this may take from 40 minutes to an hour and a half. Half an hour after the start of stewing, you need to add the previously prepared tomato paste from fresh tomatoes to the vegetable mixture.
Finely chopped greens (dill, parsley, coriander, celery), spices (ground black and allspice pepper), garlic, as well as salt and sugar are added about 5-10 minutes before the end of the caviar stewing.
Still hot caviar is laid out in sterilized jars and sterilized for 30 minutes – half-liter, and 45-50 minutes – liter jars.
Vinegar 9% is usually added at the very end of caviar stewing. For the amount that was indicated at the beginning of the recipe, 1 tablespoon of vinegar is enough. You can also add vinegar in an amount of just under one teaspoon to each liter jar just before spinning. But keep in mind that adding vinegar still slightly changes the taste of the finished dish. Therefore, before making large portions, you must first try what happens as a result.
Other interesting recipes and supplements
All the basic principles for making zucchini caviar were outlined in the previous chapter, but many other ingredients are often added to zucchini caviar to complete the taste.
The most interesting and delicious additions are white roots. They usually consist of parsnips, root parsley and root celery. To impart an exquisite mushroom taste and aroma, white roots are carefully crushed and fried until softened before being added to caviar. They need quite a bit – for 1 kg of zucchini, no more than 50 grams of roots are taken in the total mass.
But they have a unique effect on the taste of finished caviar, although it is not so easy to get them even in our time. It is easiest to grow them yourself, especially since they are a wonderful seasoning for many first, second courses and preparations for the winter.
It goes well with zucchini and gives caviar an exquisite taste with the addition of sweet bell pepper. Usually, its fruits are peeled from the stalks and seed chambers, cut into pieces and fried in a pan or baked in the oven. Then they are mixed with the rest of the mass of vegetables.
Eggplants will also serve as a good addition to zucchini caviar. They will enhance its mushroom flavor and give it an extra delicacy. Eggplants are usually peeled and soaked for several hours in salt water to remove bitterness. But most modern eggplant varieties do not need these procedures. If in doubt, you can try a piece of fruit with a peel before cutting. Eggplant is quite edible raw. In any case, before adding them to zucchini caviar, eggplant must be fried in small pieces or baked in the oven until softened. You can even bake them in halves, but after cooling they must be chopped with a knife, meat grinder or in a blender. Only after that the eggplants are mixed with the rest of the vegetables.
Recipes using modern kitchen appliances
Equally well, zucchini caviar is obtained both in a slow cooker and using an air grill. The latter is especially good for pasteurizing the finished product.
Zucchini caviar in a slow cooker
The amount of starting products for making zucchini caviar with tomatoes is the same for both recipes:
- Zucchini – 3 kg;
- Sweet pepper – 1 kg;
- Carrots – 1 kg;
- Onion – 1 kg;
- Ripe tomatoes – 1,5 kg;
- Vegetable oil – 100 ml;
- Salt, sugar, spices and herbs – to taste.
All vegetables are cut into small cubes. The oil is poured into a slow cooker, the “baking” mode is set for 40 minutes, and chopped carrots, onions, and sweet peppers are laid out in the bowl. After 20 minutes, chopped tomatoes are added to them.
At the end, add sugar, salt, spices, mix well and transfer to a separate bowl.
Switch the multicooker to the “Stew” mode for two hours and put chopped zucchini inside the bowl. After the beep signal for the end of work has sounded, it is necessary to mix all the vegetables together and chop them. Then they are laid out again in the multicooker bowl. The “baking” mode is set and the squash caviar is cooked until it becomes thick.
After cooking, the caviar is laid out in jars, sterilized and rolled up in the usual way.
Aerogrill for cooking zucchini caviar
For cooking, the same ingredients are used in the same ratio as in the previous recipe, plus another 9% vinegar.
Cut zucchini, peppers and tomatoes into large pieces. Bake the zucchini at 250 degrees for 10 minutes. Then add sweet peppers and tomatoes to them and bake for another 10 minutes. After cooling, remove the skin from the tomatoes and zucchini.
Fry the peeled and chopped onions with carrots separately until golden brown.
Combine all the vegetables together and grind with a blender to a puree state. Add spices, salt and sugar to them and mix well. Place the caviar in sterilized glass jars and place in the air grill without lids. Set the temperature to about 180° for 30 minutes.
Immediately after the beep, half a teaspoon of vinegar is added to each jar and the jars are rolled up with lids.
If you sterilized zucchini caviar or cooked it with vinegar, then you can store it at room temperature. To preserve the taste, it is only necessary that the storage place is dark.
