Leaf lettuce is a very valuable green culture that pleases us from early spring to early autumn. The content of folic acid, carotene and vitamin B6 in it makes it not only tasty, but also useful. Salad is used fresh, adding to various dishes and decorating them, and even used in cosmetology.
Contents:
- Benefit of lettuce
- Rules of collection and preparation of lettuce
- Freezing of lettuce leaves
- Drying
- Pickling of lettuce
To include this multivitamin greens all year round, the housewives try to prepare salad leaves for the winter. How can this be better done? There are several recipes.
Leaf lettuce: benefits both in winter and in summer
Greeks are real connoisseurs of vegetable products. They eat salad daily in huge quantities and are most aware of its useful qualities. In ancient Greece, the salad was considered a real miracle grass. He was credited with getting rid of various pains and the ability to sober up from drunk alcoholic beverages.
Today salad is no less popular. Various decoctions are made from it, which relieve the rhinitis and allergic reactions. The content of a large amount of pectin helps to cicatrize the stomach ulcer. Popular and inhalation of these green leaves. For people watching their figure, salad leaves are just a find, because they can be eaten in any quantity and at any time of the day without the threat of recruiting extra pounds and inches at the waist.
The presence of lactucine in the salad acts calmingly on the nervous system and helps with insomnia.
Using a salad in various dishes, try not to cut it with a knife, and to tear your hands at portions of the dish. So its taste does not deteriorate and more useful substances are stored. Of course, I so want to take advantage of these healing properties of lettuce in summer only, but also in winter frosts! Various ways of preparing salad for the winter allow it.
Collecting and preparing a green salad for harvesting
When harvesting a vegetable garden, remember several rules:
- tear the salad from the root and place it vertically in a special container or ventilated box;
- harvest early in the morning, after dew drying, in dry, sunny weather;
- collect only fresh and strong green leaves of medium size, large overgrown salad rosettes will be bitter;
- remove the salad from the root and rinse each leaf thoroughly, because there may be a slug between them, which must be disposed of, because it damages the quality of the product;
- washed salad should be dried on flannel fabric and used as directed.
If you do not intend to immediately consume salad, form a small stack of it, wrap it in a wet waffle towel and put it in a plastic bag. Conversion to the refrigerator. So the leaves can remain fresh and crispy for another 2-3 days. With a salad you can buy in the same way, but you have to remember that he could have been kept with the seller for some time.
Frozen salad leaves for the winter
To keep the vitamins in the salad, it can be frozen in the freezer. To do this, washed and dried leaves are laid out on plastic bags and sent to minus temperature. Also for storage instead of packages, food foil and large plastic containers will fit.
The minus of this method is that the leaves of the salad are rather tender in texture, and after the procedure of freezing and thawing they can turn into an unappetizing mushy mass. And there are simply them or in a salad will not be. But there are dishes in which the salad can be put directly in the frozen form. These include omelettes, soups and vegetable stews. Therefore, in order to use the green leaves in these dishes, cut them into small strips before refilling and pack them in a convenient container.
Drying the green salad
Like any greens, lettuce leaves can be dried using special tools for this purpose or simply dried in fresh air under gauze. For drying, choose young green leaves, after cooking they will not so much bitter. The finished product should be stored in a glass container that is tightly closed.
You can use a dried green salad in various dishes. Taste it does not have, but as a vitamin supplement will be very handy. Also from it it is possible to make broths which are applied in medical and cosmetic purposes.
Marinating leaves of lettuce
In addition to drying and freezing, there is another way of harvesting a green salad for the winter. He, according to many owners, is the most delicious. Salad company consists of: fragrant garlic, dill, parsley, also used vinegar, both normal and infused on herbs.
To prepare a pickled salad that you can put in the fridge, you need a marinade. It is based on water, salt, sugar, citric acid and vegetable oil. Salad leaves are stacked in layers in a large container. Each layer is watered with a hot marinade and sprinkled with chopped herbs and garlic. To enhance the taste and flavor, you can add fragrant peppercorns and a bay leaf. This salad is prepared under oppression and is poisoned in the refrigerator or cellar. It is stored for a maximum of a month.
To let the salad last longer, it is pre-fried in sunflower oil with garlic. Add the fragrant vinegar and roll into sterilized jars. This method provides long-term storage.
Make sure to prepare the salad in the ways described above. And choose the one that will be most convenient and delicious for you.