From year to year every autumn every good housewife has the same process - harvesting vegetables for the winter. The king of this "triumph" can rightly be considered eggplant, which in the southern regions is called tenderly "blue".In the season of harvest, the price of vegetables falls significantly, and it is a sin not to cook a few dozen jars of elegant delicacy, which is always pleasant to open on winter evenings.
Contents:
- Eggplant harvesting options for the winter
- Drying
- Freezing
- Preserving
- Delicious recipe: eggplant in the aszhik
Eggplant harvesting options for the winter
Eggplants can be prepared for winter in various ways: canning, marinating and pickling in barrels or jars, oven drying, freezing in freezers. Let's get acquainted in more detail with each of these ways.
Drying
The first and very interesting way to prepare aubergines for the winter is to dry them in a dryer, oven or outdoors. This method is not yet very widespread in our latitudes, but it is very popular in southern countries such as Italy or Turkey.
You need to dry the ripe eggplants, without stains and large seeds. First you need to decide what type of food you will cook from dry vegetables. For the preparation of winter vegetable stew, and most other dishes it is desirable to dry the blue in the form of cubes.
Before drying, eggplants are peeled and cut into small cubes or pieces of another shape, as you will need in the winter, for example, straws.
The easiest way to dry eggplants outdoors, in a well-ventilated place, in the shade, avoiding direct sunlight. For quality drying, it will take three to four days. Periodically, vegetables need to be turned over.
Another quick way is drying in the oven or dryer. Sliced vegetables are put in the oven for three to four hours at a temperature of up to sixty degrees.
It is necessary to store dried eggplants in a dry dark place in rag bags. Before starting cooking dishes from them, eggplant soaked for an hour in warm water and then cooked according to the usual recipes.
To prepare your favorite salads, the blue ones are dried with straws, having cleaned them first from the peel. Such straws are dried very quickly - just a couple of days, and stored also in rag bags.
In southern countries, it is common to dry eggplant halves - for their subsequent stuffing. Also eggplants can be dried entirely, with the proper drying of the seeds in the eggplant will rattle, as in a rattle.
Dry eggplants are very reminiscent of dried mushrooms. What can also save a little finance for the family budget. It will very please any gourmet and simple consumer. It is always pleasant to combine business with pleasure.
How to freeze aubergines for the winter
The easiest way to prepare aubergines for the winter is to freeze. You can freeze raw vegetables and vegetables, which have undergone a small heat treatment. Store these vegetables in plastic containers, which are designed for low temperatures.
Eggplant should be cut into pieces to one centimeter and lowered into boiling water with the addition of lemon juice for three to five minutes. After that, vegetables cool, put in a container and sent to the freezer. Cutting vegetables is not important - it is done at the discretion of the hostess, taking into account the subsequent type of cooking.
Preserving aubergines for the winter
The most common method of harvesting blue for the winter months is preserving in various ways. In late summer and early autumn, millions of housewives throughout the country are engaged in canning eggplants. There are many recipes, methods, secrets and methods of conservation of this golden vegetable.
Aubergine itself has a low calorie content - slightly more than 30 kilocalories. But this vegetable is able as a sponge to absorb a lot of vegetable oil, which turns the dish into a fairly high-calorie and satisfying treat.
For conservation, vegetables are always pre-sprinkled with salt - to remove excess moisture and get rid of bitterness. Eggplant contains a lot of fiber, and in the finished dish it is even larger, so the glut of the body with fiber can lead to some problems with the stomach - this must be taken into account when choosing a prescription for harvesting for the winter. Especially many useful properties are in caviar from blue.
Delicious recipe: aubergines in Adjika
One of the most common recipes. The snack is rather satisfying, tasty and suitable for both the daily winter ration and the festive table. The recipe is wonderful in that it can add its own ingredients, change the amount of salt, sugar or vinegar - it all depends on your personal preferences and digestive tract. Preparation is short-lived, which is very encouraging for any hostess who does not have a lot of time.
Ingredients:
- eggplant - based on 1 piece per half-liter jar;
- for Adzhika:
- sweet red pepper - 3 kilograms;Hot pepper
- - 100-150 grams;
- garlic - 150-200 grams;
- salt - 3 tablespoons;
- sugar - 1 tablespoon;
- vinegar - 150-200 ml;
- vegetable oil.
Pepper together with garlic and hot pepper, pass through a meat grinder, add salt and sugar. The resulting mixture is boiled in a saucepan for no more than ten minutes. Gradually, you need to enter vinegar, dosed, because for someone and 200 grams of vinegar is small, but for someone and 100 a lot.
Eggplants are cut into rings and filled with salt to remove excess bitterness from the vegetable. An hour later, the juice merges. In boiling water we lower the blue for the time, which is required for cooking - depending on the size of the eggplant, on average from fifteen to thirty minutes. If you need a more sour dish, you can add a little vinegar to the water.
After the vegetables are cooked, you can start filling the cans that were previously sterilized. You need to fill with layers - a layer of blue, then a layer of Adzhika and so on until the container is full. Adjuki should be put a little less than eggplant. Banks are rolled up and sent to a dark place.
This recipe is simple, but there is one small nuance - from the experience of seasoned housewives, there are always unused blue or small remnants of Adjika. We do not need to get baked - blue can be preserved as an independent dish, as well as adzhika. Either smear a piece of white bread and thank yourself for the work done.