Thanks to its unusual taste, rhubarb has gained a lot of fans. Of the 40 popular plant species, only 6 are cultivated for culinary purposes. The most common ones are: wavy, petiolate and compact vegetables. The best way to save rhubarb and get a portion of vitamins for the winter is homemade.
How to choose high-quality rhubarb for storage
Rhubarb ranks first in fiber content, followed by apples and lemons. This vegetable includes vitamin B9, as well as folic acid - it is necessary for hemoglobin to form and synthesize DNA.
Rhubarb should not be lethargic, the stems should be flat, strong and dense, and choose a better young plant so that it will be better preserved for the whole winter. Usually, the vegetable is frozen, pre-cut into small pieces. So rhubarb can be saved for a year.
Important! It is worth remembering that leaves of the plant can not be cooked and consumed. They contain oxalic acid, which is very toxic.
Frost
Despite the fact that freezing changes the texture of the vegetable, when making jam and using the product for baking, such a change is rarely a problem. There are many ways to prepare vegetables for storage for the winter. One of the methods is as follows:
- Place the cut pieces in freezer containers.
- Leave about 1 cm of space on top and write the number and current date for convenience.
- If you are using a bag, not trays, remove excess air before closing it.
- Some add sugar to the vegetable before freezing.
You can freeze a variety of products without losing their values: blueberries, strawberries, milk mushrooms, eggplants, apples, cilantro, dill, pears, parsnips.
Today, different dishes with the addition of this unique vegetable are becoming increasingly popular. However, it is impossible to buy it in the winter time, because freezing is a great option to save. There are 3 main ways to preserve: syrup, juice, dry storage.
In syrup
To make a light sugar syrup, you need to dissolve 2 cups of sugar in 6 cups of water. For an average syrup, you can take 3 cups of sugar, and for a thick one, 4 cups of sugar for the same amount of water. Then need do the following:
- when the sugar is dissolved, the syrup must be removed from the fire;
- let it cool;
- Place the chopped pieces of vegetable in a container and cover with cool syrup on top;
- do not forget to remove excess air;
- store in the freezer.
Important! As a substitute for syrup You can use any fruit juice. For frozen rhubarb, this is an extra flavor.
In juice
what necessary for juice:
- the vegetable is sprinkled with sugar in the ratio of 4 to 1 (for example, 4 glasses of rhubarb need to take a glass of sugar);
- sugar should dissolve;
- place the rhubarb pieces in a container and remove excess air;
- put in the freezer.
Read also about how to prepare for the winter: sea buckthorn, viburnum, gooseberry, chokeberry, cherry, apricots, hawthorn, cranberries, asparagus beans, physalis, pepper, green garlic, porcini, horseradish, zucchini, squash, spinach.
Dry storage
For this method we need the following actions:
- raw, pre-washed pieces of vegetable should be placed in an airtight container or bag;
- remove excess air;
- close container tightly;
- place the contents in the freezer;
- For color retention, you can flush the rhubarb before freezing.
Harvesting rhubarb with sugar and orange peels
For the recipe you will need: 1 kg of vegetable slices, 100 g of orange peels, 1.2 kg of sugar.
Dry orange peels are poured with water until softened, and then cut into small pieces. Cooked vegetable slices and orange peels are sprinkled with sugar. This ready mixture is aged until sugar crystals completely dissolve, and then cooked over low heat until cooked for about 40 minutes. The billet is packaged still hot in warm cans and tightly closed. No need to pasteurize, because the jam has a high percentage of acidity.
Did you know? Wild rhubarb can be found in the mountain forests of Central China. And the root and leaves of such a plant are used for medical purposes.
Preservation
The vegetable contains ascorbic acid, sugar, rutin, malic acid, pectic substances and many other elements. The harvest is collected, and preservation is usually done until mid-June: it is not worthwhile to tighten this process - as the air temperature rises, the petioles begin to get rude, they accumulate oxalic acid, which is harmful for the body, especially children. From the plant also cooked kissel, compote, filling for the cake, jam. Any recipe will please the taste, and in each of them the main ingredient is rhubarb.
The juice
Ingredients Required: 1 kg of petioles, 150 g of sugar.
For the future juice, only young stalks are needed, which contain a lot of malic acid and a little oxalic acid. Such petioles are juicier, less fibrous. To prepare the stalks are not cut, but gently come off. Leaf leaves are removed, as they contain a lot of oxalic acid.
Next, the petioles are cleaned, washed in cold water, cut into pieces (1 cm), placed in a colander for 3 minutes, then in boiling water, and then cooled with cool water, and the juice is squeezed out of them with a press. To get rid of excess oxalic acid, you need to add a little clean chalk (in the pharmacy, calcium carbonate is sold).
The mixture is stirred and left to stand for 8 hours. After the contents are filtered, passing through cheesecloth. Everything is mixed with sugar, heated to dissolve. Ready juice packaged in heated jars.
Mashed potatoes
Ingredients needed: 700 g of mashed mass, 280 g of sugar.
Fresh petioles are peeled off, cut into pieces up to 3 cm, which are placed in an enameled dish, sprinkled in layers of sugar, placed in an oven and kept until softened.
Ready rhubarb is passed through a meat grinder, the mass is boiled down to the consistency of sour cream, and vanillin or cinnamon is added at the end of cooking. While still hot, the mixture is packaged in heated cans.
Jam
Gentle petioles are washed in cool water, allowed to drain, then fibrous filaments are removed, and the petioles are cut into 1.5 cm pieces. Rhubarb is blanched in boiling water for 1 minute, cooled with water, placed in an enamelled container, poured on top with previously prepared hot syrup.
You can also make jam from tomatoes, melons, sunberry, dogwoods and apples.
Rhubarb jam is cooked in 2 doses: first boil for 20 minutes on low heat and incubate for about 12 hours. After boil until full readiness. Then jam jammed in heated jars, tightly closed and allowed to cool without turning the jars on the lid.
Did you know? There is the word "Walla" that the Hollywood crowd crowd shouts out in order to create the effect of the hum of the crowd. In English cinema, the word is repeated - "Rhubarb", which means "rhubarb". In Japanese - "Gaya". Of course, today these techniques are rare, and the crowd often says the usual phrases, improvising on the go.
Jam
It will take: 1 kg of rhubarb, 1-1.5 kg of sugar.
Vegetable peeled and cut into pieces. Then for 5 minutes immersed in boiling water, then - in a colander to let the water glass. After that, the mass is passed through a meat grinder, mixed with sugar and boiled until cooked, stirring regularly. The hot product, as in other recipes, is packaged in jars, closed and not pasteurized.
In syrup
Products: 2 kg of a plant, 450 g of sugar, 2 l of water, juice of 1 lemon.
Vegetable washed, cleaned, cut into pieces. Water with sugar is brought to a boil, then rhubarb is added, and all this is cooked for 30 minutes on a quiet fire. Rhubarb is rubbed through a sieve, and juice is collected in a separate container. Syrup put on fire, boil up to 3/4 of the amount for 40 minutes. Half of the process adds lemon juice. Ready syrup is cooled a little and poured into jars, tightly closing. Stored syrup up to 1 year.
Marmalade
It will take: 1 kg of the product, 1 kg of sugar, orange peel (with 1 pc).
Pieces of rhubarb are placed in a large bowl, sprinkled with sugar and left for 2 days in the refrigerator. Additionally, you can add orange zest to taste. After 48 hours, rhubarb should be boiled for 30 minutes, stirring regularly. After everything is laid out in banks.
Dried rhubarb
Ingredients: 1 kg of product, 290 g of sugar.
Wash the slices of vegetable in cool water, sprinkle it with sugar, put over-heavy something and leave it for a day. Drain the resulting juice, and place the petioles on a baking tray to dry at 60 ° C. Boil juice with sugar and then close it in jars. Dried rhubarb is placed in a canvas bag and stored in a room where there are no foreign odors.
