Not everyone knows about this tree from a kind of plums. In the North, where cherry plum does not grow because of its sensitivity to frost, they do not even know what tasty fruits it has.
But in Asia, in Ukraine, in the Caucasus, they know both its taste and a lot of different dishes, which can be made from cherry plum. For example, the famous “Tkemali” sauce is originally prepared just from cherry plum. These fruits are used not only for making compotes, jams, sauces, but also used to maintain their health.
Useful properties of cherry plum
- Cherry plums contain sugars, pectins, vitamins: C, E, A.
- There is a lot of citric, nicotinic and malic acid in cherry plum.
- It is rich in beneficial microelements, especially potassium and iodine.
- Cherry plum normalizes intestinal function.
- Cherry plum fruit improves blood circulation.
- Alycha normalizes blood pressure, so it is recommended to use it for hypertensive patients.
- Cherry plum juice has an anti-inflammatory effect and also helps cough.
- Cherrywood improves metabolism.
- Juice of cherry plum is used in cosmetology, for example, in the fight against acne.
- Infusion of pits of cherry plum used for rinsing hair.
Cherry plum is a fruit tree that can produce up to 300 kg of fruits over a season. The size of the plum fruits is small, up to 3 cm in diameter. But lately, varieties have been bred with larger fruits.
Depending on the variety, fruits can be yellow, red, pink, purple.
Like plums, some varieties of cherry plum have a well-separated bone (the Beauty of Orlovschina, Monomakh, Anastasia, Timiryazevskaya), in others, the bone is partially separated (Cleopatra, Yarilo, Gold of the Scythians), but in most of the fruits of cherry-plum the bone firmly grows into the flesh.
Cherry plum lends itself well to freezing. Most often it is frozen with whole fruits, but if the bones are well separated, you can spend some time removing them and freeze the cherry plums in halves.
How to freeze whole cherry plum
- Cherry plum is sifted out, removing unripe, rotted fruit, as well as with wormholes or with damaged skin. Separate the stalk.
- The cherry plum is washed, laid out on a cotton towel and dried.
- Alyucha, dried from water, is packed in small bags with a zip-fastener in one row, not pressing them together, closed and put in a freezer.
How to freeze a plum by halves
For such a method of freezing suitable fruit with well separated pulp.
- The cherry plum is picked and dried.
- With a sharp knife, the fruit is cut in two halves along the groove and the bone is removed.
- Halves of cherry plum are laid out freely on a flat dish or tray, cut up and placed in the freezer for 1-3 hours. During this time, plum will freeze, hardens and already during storage will not smarts in one continuous lump.
- The frozen cherry plum is put in plastic bags, the air is released and tied.
How to freeze cherry plum with sugar
If the plums are sour, then they can be frozen with sugar.
Whole or halved fruits are put in small containers, sprinkled in layers of sugar, covered with lids and put into the freezer.
Whole unfrozen fruits are used for making compotes.
In the filling for cakes, cherry plums (halves), as well as cherry plums in sugar without stones, are not thawed.
For making sauces or puree, plum is thawed in a refrigerator or at room temperature.
It is impossible to freeze the cherry plum again, therefore, before freezing, cherry plum is divided into portions, as they say, “one time”.
