It is best to store cabbage in winter in a cellar, where the temperature is -1 to 2 C, and the humidity of air is 90-98%.But, alas, such a convenient cellar is not at all. What are the other ways to keep cabbage, fresh and sour? How to store it correctly, so that until the spring of your menu there were dishes from this tasty and very useful vegetable?
Contents:
- How to store white cabbage
- How to store sauerkraut
- How to deal with mold on sauerkraut
How to store winter fresh cabbage
Cabbage for long-term storage should be carefully selected. It is advisable that they are headed out with green covering leaves. In a bunch of cabbage in no case can not add, because the vegetable and so in itself contains a lot of moisture. If you add all the cabbage together, this will only increase the likelihood of rotting cabbages.
It is also undesirable that cabbage heads are laid on the earthen floor. Air to the heads should come from all sides, for this use different boards, of which make shelves. Suitable and solid wood flooring or wooden grill, previously washed in a solution of baking soda. Ideally, on wooden shelves or decking it is desirable to put the leaves of fern or burdock - they preserve the freshness of cabbage leaves and do not allow it to deteriorate.
To increase the dryness under the flooring from the boards, you can also use straw. The heads are laid out on the deck in 2 or even 3 rows in checkerboard order. This is necessary for better air circulation between them. Necessarily the stunted up! This will prevent the decay of the upper leaves and the stump itself.
Another way to store cabbage is to tie the cabbages with twine and hang them to the crossbeams. Doing this will be much more convenient if you leave a large part of the stump on the head in advance. Leave about 2-4 cm from the head, this will be enough.
There are other methods of storing cabbage in the winter. For example, a kind of conservation of cabbage with clay. First, the heads must be cleaned of the upper green leaves. A twine should be attached to the stump. Having hung to the crossbar or any other beam, cabbage heads should be well covered with a ball of thick, doughy clay. Try to do it so that there are no spaces on the surface of cabbage.
Thanks to the clay around the cabbage a peculiar cover is formed, which protects the heads from withering, rot and diseases. Covered with clay cabbage heads leave under a canopy in the fresh air, so that they dry up. Once they dry out well enough, they are transferred and hung in a cellar.
With the help of clay cabbage can be stored until the very spring, sagging in the cellar throughout the winter, while it will not lose its freshness. There is no need to check it and remove rotten or faded cabbage leaves.
If cabbage is to be stored for a long time in significant quantities, up to 200 cabbages and more, and the presence of appropriate weather conditions, cabbage can be snowed. This means that all cabbage cabbage can and should be laid with a stump up in a well-packed area with snow. Naturally, this method is suitable only for those regions where the average air temperatures in winter are low enough, and the snow cover is magnificent and high. The laid out heads are poured with layers of snow in 15-20 cm. The height of such a stack can be more than one and a half meters. Such stacks must be covered with a layer of snow, which should be approximately 1 meter thick. Then the resulting snowdrift is covered with mats on the sides and compact snow. To muffle from above and, thus, protect from melting in the sun can be sawdust or reeds. The top protective layer should not be more than 40 cm in thickness.
In southern areas where winters are not so cold and snowy, cabbage can be stored right in the ground. For this, a ditch is pulled out, and cabbage cabbage heads are folded up into it. Cabbage is covered with a ten centimeter layer of soil. As the temperature grows colder, the earth is enlarged, but try not to exceed 30 cm.
How to store sauerkraut
Storage of sauerkraut is a rather complicated process, which implies different rules than storing simple fresh cabbage. This is explained by the fact that the process of sour is a kind of fermentation, in which microorganisms take an immediate and active part. Storage temperature of sauerkraut should not be lower and not above 0 degrees. By itself, sauerkraut does not lose its valuable properties when the temperature is lowered, but thawing it after freezing, and then re-freezing destroys vitamin C.
As a food, sauerkraut must be consumed as soon as it is thawed. If this becomes impossible, for example, cabbage is too much, then try not to allow the product to freeze again.
Cabbage mass in the container in which it is stored and sour, must be covered with brine. But in any case do not act on top of it. This is necessary, first of all, in order not to break down vitamin C, which does not live long without brine.
Without brine, sauerkraut loses its value, and therefore get it out of the container just before eating. The cabbage remaining in the barrel or tub is leveled and laid on top to oppress the brine to cover it completely, and cover with a lid until the next time.
From time to time, sauerkraut should be sprinkled with a tablespoon of sugar. Under the influence of microorganisms, it turns into vinegar, and he, as is known, protects cabbage from spoilage. If possible, add cabbage berries cranberries or cranberries - they also have a good effect on the storage process of sauerkraut.
How to deal with mold on sauerkraut
During storage of sauerkraut, cucumbers and tomatoes, a white coating on the surface sometimes appears in the jar. It is mold, which is caused by yeast fungi. This mold turns cabbage into a flabby and tasteless substance, and cucumbers and tomatoes under its influence soften and lose taste.
Means that perfectly copes with this mold - mustard and horseradish. If you sprinkle mustard powder with salted or sour products in a tub or jar, there will be no mold, and the taste of the products will become more intense.
You can apply and seeds of mustard. They need to be covered in a thin cloth or gauze and put in a container with food. Try to push the bag of seeds as deeply as possible into the container and leave it between the fruits.
Horseradish will come to the rescue. Its fine shavings, sprinkled at the top of the container, kill mold and improve the taste of foods.