When the first frosts suddenly come at the beginning of autumn, the most zealous owners face the question: what to do with unripe, almost green tomatoes, hastily collected from the bushes? Indeed, at this time they are often recruited in quantity even more than ripe, red fruits, which can always be put on tomato paste.
It turns out that since ancient times, it was green tomatoes that were salted in large quantities for the winter in the most traditional way, using large wooden barrels and tubs. And in our time, this method has not lost its relevance, only now it is known more as a cold way of pickling green tomatoes, and the most ordinary pan is most often used as a container.
Simple yet effective recipe
There are quite a few recipes for making green tomatoes using the cold salting method. But among them, the simplest is the one that our great-grandparents most often used and which will require minimal effort from you.
The number of tomatoes for pickling will be different for everyone. But, for example, for 2 kg of tomatoes, it is necessary to prepare 2 liters of water for brine and 120-140 g of salt.
According to this recipe, tomatoes are used whole, but for better impregnation with brine, it is advisable to pierce each tomato with a needle in several places.
Mandatory components for any salting are spices. To make it tasty, for such a number of tomatoes you need to cook at least:
- Dill – 50 g;
- Garlic – 1 head;
- Cherry and blackcurrant leaves – about 10 pieces;
- Oak and laurel leaves – 2-3 pieces each;
- Leaves and pieces of horseradish rhizome – a few pieces;
- Black and allspice pepper – 3-4 peas each;
- A bunch of parsley, basil, celery, tarragon – whatever you find to your liking.
The pan can only be used with an enamel coating or stainless steel. It must be scalded with boiling water before use.
At the bottom of the pan, first lay out some of the seasonings and herbs so that they cover the entire bottom. Freed from the tails and stalks, lay the tomatoes quite tightly, shifting them with layers of spices. From above, all tomatoes should also be completely covered with a layer of spices.
According to this method, tomatoes are poured with cold brine. But in order for the salt to dissolve well in it, it must be boiled and cooled in advance.
Salted tomatoes should be kept under normal room conditions for a week, and then placed in a cool place. They will be ready in about 3 weeks, although they will only improve in flavor as they soak in brine for two months. The most immature, very green tomatoes are pickled the longest. They are not recommended to be touched earlier than after 2 months.
If you don’t have conditions for ripening and storing tomatoes at all, then you can carefully transfer them in a week to glass jars, cover with plastic lids and place in the refrigerator.
Interestingly, this recipe can be simplified even more by not preparing a special brine, but simply pouring the tomatoes with spices with the necessary amount of salt. After salting, it is only necessary to cover the tomatoes with a lid and place a load on top in the form of a clean stone or a glass jar filled with water.
Recipe for sweet tooth
The above sour and spicy recipe is universal, but many people like sweet and sour blanks. They will be interested in the following unique recipe using sugar and special seasonings.
To cold pickle green tomatoes in a saucepan with this recipe, you will need to cook some more mature red tomatoes in addition to green tomatoes to make a filling from them.
To prepare green tomatoes, with a total weight of 1 kg, you need to find:
- 0,4 kg of red tomatoes;
- 300 grams of sugar;
- 30 g salt;
- 50 grams of blackcurrant leaves;
- A pinch of cinnamon;
- A few pieces of cloves;
- A few peas of black and allspice.
Cover the bottom of a pan scalded with boiling water with a continuous layer of blackcurrant leaves and put half of the other spices. Spread clean green tomatoes in layers, sprinkling each layer with sugar. It is necessary that after laying all the tomatoes on top, at least 6-8 cm of free space remains in the container.
Then pass the red tomatoes through a meat grinder, add salt and the remaining sugar to them, mix. Pour the mixture over the stacked tomatoes. After they stand warm for 3-4 days, the pan with the workpiece must be taken out to a cold room.
Salted tomatoes stuffed
According to this recipe, tomatoes are most often prepared using the hot pouring method with vinegar, but this does not mean at all that green tomatoes cannot be prepared in the same way in a cold way without vinegar. It’s just that such a blank is stored, if you do not use sterilization, it should be in the refrigerator.
For 5 kg of green tomatoes, 1 kg of sweet pepper and onion, 200 g of garlic and a couple of hot pepper pods are prepared. It will be good to add a few bunches of greens: dill, parsley, cilantro, basil.
To prepare the brine, bring 1 grams of salt to a boil in 30 liter of water, add bay leaves, allspice and black pepper to your taste. The brine is cooled. As in previous recipes, the use of spices for salting is only welcome: dill inflorescences, oak leaves, cherries and currants, and, possibly, tarragon with savory.
To prepare the filling, both types of pepper, onion and garlic are crushed with a knife or meat grinder and lightly salted. Then each tomato is cut from the smooth side into 2, 4 or even 6 parts and the vegetable filling is placed inside it. In a saucepan of the required size, the tomatoes are stacked in layers with the filling up. Spicy greens with spices are laid between the layers. The layers are compacted as much as possible so as not to crush the tomatoes.
Then they are filled with cold brine. A plate without oppression is placed on top, but the tomatoes must be completely hidden under the surface of the brine. In a warm place, it is enough to stand for such a blank for about 3 days until the brine becomes cloudy. Then the tomatoes must be removed in the refrigerator.
If you have absolutely no space in the refrigerator to store such a workpiece, then you can do otherwise. Immediately lay out the tomatoes in jars and, after filling with brine, put the jars for sterilization. For liter jars, it is necessary to sterilize them for 15-20 minutes from the moment the water boils, three-liter jars need at least 30 minutes for complete sterilization. But green tomatoes harvested in this way can be stored simply in the pantry.
It seems that among the variety of the above recipes, everyone will definitely find something that suits the taste or preferences of their household.
