Prunes - Description
Prunes are not a certain sort of fruit or tree species, they are dried fruits of homemade plums of different varieties - Hungarian (Italian and ordinary), Stanley, Renklod Altana, Kroman, Naroch. Hungarian is most often dried, it is from it that the most high-quality dried fruits are obtained, with a high content of pectins and sugars in the pulp.
For the future, prunes are selected the most ripe berries, which are pre-blanched to wash off the wax and speed up the drying time. More often plums are dried without stones, but dried fruits with stones save more useful substances. At home, the fruit is dried for several days in the sun, under a light breeze, or in the oven for about four to six hours, on low heat.
Quality prunes should be soft, elastic, not overdried. With proper drying, about two hundred grams of dried fruit are obtained from one kilogram of fresh plums. Prunes on the counters of shops and markets are supplied from Central Asia, Moldova, Ukraine, and some regions of Russia. The largest global suppliers of prunes are Chile, Australia, Argentina, USA, South Africa.
Prunes - Useful Properties
Prunes are considered a very useful dried fruit, and deservedly so. It retains almost all the vitamins and trace elements of fresh plums, so it just needs to be consumed during the spring vitamin deficiency. It is rich in potassium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, carotene, pectin substances, vitamins A, PP, C, group B.
This dark shiny berry is a natural laxative and an excellent antioxidant. Contains chlorogenic acid, which has antimicrobial and antibacterial action. And potassium citrotartrate contained in the fruit, prevents the growth of harmful bacteria in the mouth, prevents the development of gum disease and teeth.
The use of prunes is useful for people suffering from cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, atherosclerosis, rheumatism, and liver diseases. Daily consumption of several berries will help to normalize the work of the intestines, kidneys, water-salt balance, contributes to the withdrawal of cholesterol. Prunes are useful, but not recommended for everyone. Restrictions apply to nursing mothers, so as not to provoke an upset stomach in children, diabetes patients, obese.
Prunes - calories
Caloric content of 100g of prunes is 264 kcal.
Prunes - use in cooking
Prune for a long time no one remembers just like berries compote. Its use in cooking is much wider. It fits perfectly with meat, vegetables, nuts, mushrooms, wine. Therefore, it, as one of the main ingredients, is added to the composition of all kinds of salads - meat, vegetable, fruit. They stuff fish, poultry, stew meat with it, make delicious desserts with nuts and sour cream, sweets, bake cakes, rolls, and insist in wine.
Recipe Examples with Prunes
Recipe 1: Salad with prunes and chicken
Salad with a delicate pleasant taste, interspersed with mild acidity. In addition to prunes, it includes chicken meat, fresh cucumber, cheese, eggs. It is made out and laid out in layers, flavored with mayonnaise.
Ingredients: 1 chicken breast (300g), 200g prunes, 1 fresh cucumber (or 2 small), 4 eggs, 150g cheese (hard, semi-hard), salt, mayonnaise.
Method of preparation
Boil hard-boiled eggs, chicken breasts - until soft. Prune coarsely chopped. In a salad bowl lay out in layers:
- finely chopped chicken, mayonnaise;
- prunes, mayonnaise;
- cucumber, cut into small cubes (or coarsely grate), salt, mayonnaise;
- coarsely grated protein, mayonnaise;
- coarsely grated cheese, mayonnaise;
- yolks crumbled with a fork (or finely grate).
Decorate the salad according to your taste and desire, let it brew for several hours in the cold.
Recipe 2: Salad with prunes, beetroot and meat
With beetroot and prunes beef is best combined with meat. That is what we will use. Salad is cooked quickly, assembled in layers, in the form of a small cake. It is simple, but tasty, and few people will leave indifferent. Ingredients: 200g of boiled beef, 1-2 small onions (150g), 1 medium-sized beets (200g), 15-20 pcs. sweet and sour prunes (100g), mayonnaise.
Method of preparation
Boil the meat until soft (salt water), cool, finely chop.
Boil the maroon-colored boil in uniform. As it cools, peel and coarsely rub.
Prune pour over boiling water. If it is harsh, then pour boiling water for about twenty minutes. Cut in small pieces.
Crumble onion into cubes, pour boiling water for ten minutes, rinse with running cold water.
Gather a salad. Put a layer of meat on the dish, giving it a round or square shape. Brush with mayonnaise. Next, put onions, prunes and mayonnaise on it. The last layer is laid out beets, smeared abundantly with mayonnaise. Salad to decorate and let it brew.
Recipe 3: Salad with prunes, beef and fresh cabbage
“Delicious” - this is the name of the salad, which fully confirms it, the taste of the salad is excellent - original, exquisite. Cabbage must be taken juicy, sluggish and tough will not work.
Ingredients: 300g boiled beef, 200g fresh cabbage (white), 2 potatoes, 1/2 jars of green peas, 150g soft prunes (seedless), 1 fresh apple (sour-sweet), 2 eggs, fresh parsley (bunch), salt, 1/2 lemon (juice), black pepper, mayonnaise.
Method of preparation
Boil potatoes in their skins. Boil eggs hard-boiled, beef - until soft, in salted water with spices. Cool it down. Potatoes and eggs cut into small cubes, beef - thin straws.
Cabbage chop straws, mash, salt, pepper, pour lemon juice.
Finely chop the prunes, peel the apple and coarsely grate. Mix all the ingredients and fill with mayonnaise. Salt to taste if required.
Recipe 4: Salad with prunes and mushrooms
The unusual combination of prunes, mushrooms, meat and pickled onions give the salad a very interesting taste that you will not forget for a long time. The ingredients are laid out in a salad bowl in layers. Ingredients: 1 chicken breast (or large chicken leg), 300g of fresh champignons, 5 eggs, 150g of prunes, 1 medium onion, vegetable oil (for frying mushrooms), mayonnaise. Marinade (for onions): 2 tables. lie vinegar (9%) and sugar, 0.5 tsp salt, bay leaf, 150-200 ml water.
Method of preparation
Boil hard-boiled eggs, chicken legs or breasts - until soft (in salted water). Make the marinade, mix all the ingredients, pour the onion cut into thin half rings and let it brew for one hour. It is necessary that the liquid completely covers the onion slices.
Mushrooms cut into longitudinal plates and fry, salt.
Prune with boiling water and leave to infuse until the water has cooled. Drain the water, cut the berries into cubes.
Collect the salad in this order:
- diced breast (chicken leg), mayonnaise;
- prunes, mayonnaise;
- pickled onions, mayonnaise;
- crumble (coarse grate) proteins, mayonnaise;
- fried mushrooms, mayonnaise;
- finely crumble the yolk.
Give the salad three hours to infuse in the refrigerator.
Recipe 5: Salad with prunes, beetroot and garlic
Salad is simple, but healthy and tasty. Despite the simplicity, it is very out of place on the festive table. It can be served in portions, beautifully decorated with a notch for cookies. Inside the molds (in the form of a flower, asterisks, etc.), put the salad, tamp it, and when it is full, remove it - the salad will keep its shape.
Ingredients: 200g of prunes, half a cup of peeled nuts, 500g of beets (2-3 pieces of medium size), 1-2 cloves of garlic, mayonnaise.
Method of preparation
For salad it is better to take beets of sweet varieties of maroon color. Wash and boil it without peeling, right in the peel.
You can chop the nuts in a blender, but not too small, so that a piece of the nut can be felt on the teeth.
Hard prunes previously for half an hour pour boiling water. Soft can be washed and immediately cut into strips.
Cool beets, peel and coarsely grate. Add garlic (finely grate or skip through the garlic press), nuts and prunes. Mix the salad thoroughly and dress with mayonnaise.
Recipe 6: Prunes with walnuts in sour cream
When making this dessert, prunes do not have to be stuffed with nuts - it is twisted in a meat grinder, and then the salad is laid out in layers, alternating with nuts and sour cream. Served in ice-cream bowls or rosettes for jam.
Ingredients: 300g soft prunes (pitted), an incomplete glass of walnuts (peeled), 200 ml sour cream, 2-3 tablespoons of sugar.
Method of preparation
Dry the nuts (fry) in a dry frying pan, chop. Soak prunes for fifteen minutes, grind. Mix sour cream and sugar until grains dissolve.
Put prunes on the bottom of the bowl, sprinkle with nuts and sprinkle with sour cream sauce. Put on two or three hours in the cold. You can decorate when serving, sprinkled with ground nuts or grated chocolate.
Recipe 7: Prunes with walnuts in chocolate
These homemade sweets are a real bomb! Prune lovers will be delighted. The bright taste of sweet and sour stuffing in the shell of milk or dark chocolate battles outright. If children eat sweets, replace cognac or liqueur with juice. From improvised means you will need toothpicks and an apple (or an orange) to fix the candies while they are dry.
Ingredients: 200g prunes, 1/2 cup walnuts (peeled), 2 tables. lie Cognac, liqueur (or juice), 150g of milk (or bitter) chocolate.
Method of preparation
Dried fruits thoroughly wash and dry. Along with the nuts mince (as an option to use a blender). Add liqueur, mix and roll the balls (somewhere with a large cherry, maybe a little more). Hands periodically have to be washed to make it easier to work.
Put the blanks of future sweets on a plate covered with foil, film or baking paper and send to the refrigerator. They must stand for several hours for the mass to clutch well.
Prepare a water bath and melt the chocolate. Pour one third of the water in a saucepan, put on the fire. In her place the dishes smaller, so that the water does not get inside, reached about 1/3 of its height. In a smaller pan, put the chocolate, broken into pieces. As the water heats up, it begins to melt and become liquid. To make candy, you need to chop a ball on a toothpick, dip it into hot chocolate, then stick a toothpick into half an apple or orange, let the chocolate harden. Or, instead of an apple, lay chocolate balls to solidify on the foil.
Recipe 8: Prunes with a walnut in wine
In the manufacture of this delicacy is not subjected to heat treatment, so you need to do it ahead of time. After all, in order for prunes to be fed with the flavors of nutmeg, you need about two weeks.
Ingredients: 500g of large soft prunes, 200-300g of peeled walnuts, sweet nutmeg wine.
Method of preparation
Rinse prunes, dry, remove bones. The walnut kernel divided into two or four parts and stuff them with prunes, laying in a jar. Pour wine, cover and insist in the cold for two weeks.
Recipe 9: Chicken with Prunes
The perfect combination is white dry wine, chicken and prunes. In this case, not a whole chicken is needed, but thighs without skin — you will have to remove it, it is not needed. In order not to throw out the skin, you can put it on the case, for example, cut and fry the bacon.
Ingredients: 1.0-1.5 chicken thighs, 0.5 l of dry wine (white), 200g of prunes (20 pieces), 1 table. lie flour, 1 onion, black pepper, salt, vegetable oil.
Method of preparation
Chicken skinned, salted, pepper. Finely chop the onion.
Heat the oil and fry the hips in it, about three to four minutes on each side. During this time, they usually manage to cover themselves with a golden crust. Put the meat on a plate and fry the onion in the same pan. When it turns golden, add flour, boil it for a minute and pour in the wine. Stir so that there are no lumps, put chicken into the sauce and simmer for about fifteen or twenty minutes, until ready, not forgetting to pepper and salt. At the very end add the prunes and warm for five to seven minutes. This chicken goes well with mashed potatoes.
Recipe 10: Pork with Prunes
Sour prunes make pork juicy and appetizing, absorbing excess fat. And nashpigovanny garlic shares its flavor with meat. Therefore, baked pork turns out so delicious. Hot meat can be served for lunch, and a piece of cold boiled pork, put on bread and grab a sandwich for work or a picnic.
Ingredients: 1.5 kg of pork (preferably the neck), 8 cloves of garlic, 400g sweet and sour prunes (pitted), salt, spices: freshly ground black and allspice, paprika, dried onions and garlic, marjoram, cumin.
Method of preparation
Pork is cooked with a whole piece, first you need to rub it with spices and pickle for eight hours or night in the cold. Put in a bowl with a lid or wrap in a film.
Before cooking, rub the meat with salt, make a puncture with a knife all over the piece and stuffed with garlic slices. Put a double sheet of foil in a frying pan or baking sheet, half prune on it, sprinkle the meat on top with a mixture of peppers and overlay it with prunes. Seal the foil so that there are no cracks and bake for forty-five minutes (200C). Then open the foil, pour the pork with the formed juice, seal the foil again and bake for another thirty to forty minutes (170C). The meat is almost ready, it remains reddened. Open the foil, pour the juice and bake for ten to fifteen minutes, without closing the foil.
Recipe 11: Beef with Prunes
It seems to be a simple-looking dish, but with a festive, exquisite taste, thanks to the perfect combination of meat and prunes. And of course spices, onions and carrots also contributed. For the bright taste of meat, it is desirable to serve a neutral flavor side dish - boiled rice, pasta, mashed potatoes.
Ingredients: 1.3 kg of beef, 3 bulbs and carrots of medium size, 300g of prunes, salt, a mixture of peppers, bay leaf, vegetable oil.
Method of preparation
Coarsely grate the carrots, finely chop the onion. Heat the oil, put vegetables in it, mix, reduce the fire and put out for about ten minutes, cover with a lid. Cut the meat into pieces slightly larger than the prunes themselves and add to the vegetables, stew for about thirty minutes. Then put prunes, pour a little more than half a glass of boiling water, salt, put spices. Make the minimum fire and simmer another half hour.
Recipe 12: Duck with Prunes
The duck, of course, can be chopped into pieces and stewed or baked with prunes. To taste this dish will be good, but when serving, from the aesthetic side, it does not look very good. After all, the duck carcass, served on the table as a whole, looks much more spectacular. Therefore, we will bake it completely, in the sleeve, filling the abdomen with fragrant prunes.
Ingredients: 1 duck - 2.5 kg, 3 cloves of garlic, black pepper, 200 ml of mayonnaise (100 ml for marinade, 100 - for baking), salt, some vegetable oil. Filling: 500g prunes, 1-2 bay leaves, 2 cloves of garlic, allspice - 3-4 peas, a pinch of coriander.
Method of preparation
Initially, it is necessary to cut off the excess fat from the duck, cut the oil gland on the tail, wash, dry. Then pickle, better all night, smeared with salt, pepper, mayonnaise and chopped garlic.
Prunes pour boiling water for ten minutes. Water is drained, and the berries are mixed with bay leaf, allspice, chopped garlic and coriander.
Stuff the prunes with the bird carcass, sew the seam. Place backwards in a sleeve, tie or fasten the edges, transfer to a baking sheet and bake for about three hours (180 ° C). After an hour and a half, turn the carcass on the belly and continue baking. Twenty minutes before the end of frying, open the sleeve (untie or cut), once again turn the carcass, smear the abdomen with mayonnaise, sprinkle with black pepper and allow to brown.
Recipe 13: Baked Prunes
Sweet and sour prunes poured with chocolate icing and soft cottage cheese stuffing - a paradise for sweet teeth, just delicious! And much more useful store chocolates. Cooking dessert does not take much time, because he is preparing quickly. Ingredients: 20-25 large prunes (pitted), 1 egg, 200g of cottage cheese, 3 table. lies honey (or sugar), plums. oil for lubrication form. Frosting: 3 table. lie sugar, 20 g creamy. oil, 2 table. lie sour cream, 2 tsp. lie cocoa.
Method of preparation
If the cottage cheese is coarse-grained, wipe it or beat with a mixer. Mix with egg and honey (sugar).
Washed and dried prunes (this can be done in advance) cut along - from edge to edge to make a “boat” and fill with minced meat.
Lubricate the form, put stuffed boats and bake for twenty minutes (190-200C). While they are getting ready, make the icing. Melt butter and sugar, add cocoa and sour cream, boil for three to five minutes.
Baked dessert pour the icing and serve.
Recipe 14: Prune Rolls
These delicious little ones will spoil any meat-eater with their matchless taste. And prunes and nuts will only add them zest. For rolls suitable for any meat - pork or veal tenderloin, chicken fillet. They can also be made from cooked smoked bacon, cut into thin slices. Such rolls even in the oven do not need to bake - just fry on both sides. For the filling, it is preferable to choose not sweet, but sour prunes.
Ingredients: 600g of pork or beef (tenderloin), 12-15 pcs. medium-sized prunes (pitted), a quarter cup of peeled walnuts, 150 ml sour cream, salt, vegetable oil, black pepper.
Method of preparation
Cut the cut across the slices, about a centimeter thick. Bounce on one side and the other. For each piece of meat put a spoonful of sour cream and rub it into the pulp. Salt slice, sprinkle with pepper and let lie. At this time, prepare the filling.
Chop the nuts into pieces with about a pea. Leave prunes whole or cut into strips. It is more convenient to do this with scissors. If it is hard, steam it for about ten or twenty minutes in boiling water. Put prunes on the edge of the slice, sleep nuts and roll into a roll, securing with a toothpick.
Moisten the form or frying pan with vegetable oil, put all the rolls in it, the top of which is thoroughly smeared with sour cream (or mayonnaise), tighten with foil and bake for twenty minutes (190-200C). Then remove the foil and continue baking until lightly crusted (approximately seven to ten minutes).
Prunes - useful tips from experienced chefs
- Choosing prunes, you should pay attention to how it looks. Fruits should be soft, elastic, dark blue, almost black in color, without excessive gloss. If the berry is too shiny, it means that it was treated with glycerin or fat to give a presentation. The taste of dried fruit should be sweet and sour, without bitterness.
