Recipes for salting crispy cucumbers for the winter

It's time to harvest and harvest. In the arsenal of experienced housewives there is more than one secret of delicious preservation. Pickled cucumbers are very popular in almost every family. They are loved not only by adults, but also by children who are not averse to crunching on a delicious cucumber. The “correct” cucumber is firm, crispy, fragrant. But pickles are not always successful, and often cucumbers become soft, and you don’t want to eat them. The secret of the “correct” cucumbers lies in the preservation technology, as well as in the proportion of products that are added to the jar during pickling.

Subtleties that every hostess should know about:

1. A very important role in the cooking process is played by the correct preparation of the jars in which the pickles will be stored. They need to be very well prepared. Wash the baking soda cans, then steam sterilize them. Cucumbers and spices should be placed in a cooled dish. Boil the lids for a few minutes.
2. It is advisable to use filtered water.
3. To evenly distribute the brine in the jar, place the cucumbers standing up.
4. If you use a winter pickling recipe, but plan to open a jar of cucumbers earlier, add sugar to the brine in a ratio of 1:100 to the total weight of the products in the jar.
5. Use coarse salt, but not iodized.
6. Be sure to place the jars in heat, wrapping them in a thick cloth, otherwise the cucumbers will disappear.
7. Oak leaves are the secret ingredient of some culinary specialists when pickling cucumbers. They are said to give the pickles an extra "crunchiness".

Firstly, it is most likely to get a crispy cucumber by pickling the fruits of a variety with pimples. Fruits of smooth varieties are more likely to become watery.

Secondly, immature hard fruits without seeds are better suited. You should not choose very large specimens - there will be a lot of free space between them.

Thirdly, it is best to pickle cucumbers just picked from the garden.

Before pickling cucumbers, they must be thoroughly washed (preferably with a soft brush) and poured with cold water for a while. It is not necessary to cut off the edges of the fruits.

There are two main ways to pickle cucumbers: hot and cold. Ingredients and amounts may vary. To prepare cucumber pickle, mustard, vinegar and vodka are used. Cucumbers differ greatly in taste depending on what spices are used in their preservation, as well as how much salt the hostess used.

Even a novice hostess who has little experience in canning can pickle cucumbers using this method. Banks in this case do not have to be tightly twisted with a special tool and you do not have to boil water. Vegetables retain their rich green color, and their taste is no worse than that of hot-salted ones. Previously, cucumbers were salted in large wooden barrels, filling them with well water. Their taste was unique. Now housewives have to be content with ordinary glass jars, but cucumbers also turn out to be unusually tasty. Cold pickled cucumbers are best stored underground or in the refrigerator.

Recipes for pickling cucumbers in a cold way

For salting, it is better to use small fruits, because they are well salted and crunchy appetizing. The green color will help preserve the vodka added in a small amount to the cucumbers.

We will need:

• fresh cucumbers about 10 cm long - 900 g;
• dill umbrellas;
• several currant leaves;
• garlic.

Preservation process:

- prepare cucumbers by washing them well with water;

- grind currant leaves and dill so that they give aroma;

- cut the peeled garlic into slices;

- dissolve 2 tablespoons of salt in 1 liter of water;

- put everything in a flat pan, pour brine;

- put oppression on top. So cucumbers should stand for 24 hours at room temperature. Then you can eat cucumbers.

In order for cold-salted cucumbers to safely wait for winter, add vinegar to the jars.

What ingredients do we need:

• about 2 kg of cucumbers with pimples;
• 1 st. a spoonful of sugar;
• 2 tbsp. tablespoons of coarse (non-iodized) salt;
• 1 teaspoon 9% vinegar;
• 3 cloves of garlic;
• medium bulb;
• horseradish;
• spices: 1 bunch of dill, 5 clove inflorescences, currant leaves, 5 allspice peas.

Cooking:

- soak cucumbers in cold water for an hour;

- put them in jars, after laying all the other ingredients on the bottom;

- pour boiling water over the jars for 10 minutes;

- Pour the liquid into a saucepan, adding sugar and salt there. Let the brine boil, then cool it;

- pour cold brine into jars, add vinegar to them and roll up a snack (you can close the jars with plastic lids).

Spicy lovers will appreciate cucumbers cooked with mustard. Fruits should be chosen small, before pickling they should be held in very cold water so that they are saturated with liquid and become denser.

In addition to pickling cucumbers, we need:

• 1 bunch of dill and parsley;
• 5-6 garlic cloves;
• 1 dill umbrella;
• leaves of currant, cherry, oak or other trees and shrubs (to taste);
• 250 g of rock salt;
• dry mustard (1 tablespoon per liter of liquid).

How to salt:

- mix 1.5 liters of boiling water and salt;

- Arrange the ingredients in jars while the brine cools;

- cool the brine, pour it into jars. Close them with plastic lids and let stand for 48 hours;

- after two days, drain the brine and fill the jars with cold boiled water, add dry mustard;

- store jars closed with nylon lids in the refrigerator or in a cool room.

There are many recipes for canning cucumbers using the hot method. Below is one of them. It does not require the addition of vinegar during the preservation process, but despite this, jars of cucumbers can be stored at room temperature in an ordinary apartment in a dark place.

For a three-liter jar, we need: 2 kg of medium-sized cucumbers, 1.5 heads of garlic, 1 medium-sized horseradish root, ingredients to taste: hot pepper, horseradish leaves, dill umbrellas, cherry and blackcurrant leaves, 1.5 tablespoons of salt without a slide.

Salting process:

prepare cucumbers: wash, cut off the tips, put the cucumbers in a container with cold water so that they are completely covered with it. We keep cucumbers in water for about 3 hours;

prepare jars and lids;

we prepare the rest of the products: wash, cut the horseradish leaves into smaller pieces, cut the horseradish root into slices, hot pepper into rings, peel the garlic;

we put bitter pepper, leaves of shrubs, half of all dill, horseradish leaves, garlic on the bottom of the jar;

we lay the cucumbers vertically (the top layer can be laid horizontally), trying to fill the jar as much as possible;

put the remaining ingredients on top;

dissolve the salt in water at room temperature and pour the liquid into jars. Cover the jars with lids and leave them for 24 hours. It may take more time (up to two days). The smaller the cucumbers and the higher the air temperature in the room, the faster the fermentation process will occur;

after the jars are “infused”, we drain the brine from them into a large saucepan, add clean cold water to it at the rate of 0.5 cups per 1 liter of liquid. Bring the brine to a boil and pour into jars;

We twist the containers with lids and turn them over. We leave them alone for 11 hours, after which we send them to be stored in a dark place.

There are a great many recipes for pickling cucumbers for the winter. They can be eaten as an independent dish or as part of other dishes (soups, salads). In any case, cucumbers will always find a place on the table of any family, whether it is a festive meal or an ordinary family dinner.