Armenian cuisine is considered one of the most ancient and traditional, it is not by chance that many people like its dishes. Among its main features are the generous use of spices, seasonings and fresh herbs, the rejection of the use of artificial preservatives and other unhealthy ingredients. Due to this, Armenian dishes have a unique taste, natural and at the same time fascinatingly savory. Tomatoes in Armenian style are harvested salted and pickled for the winter, before they are often stuffed with greens, garlic, pepper and other vegetables. Fruits for such blanks are selected dense, often underripe or even green. Ready canned foods have a seductive aroma, savory taste and appetizing look.
Cooking Features
The Armenian-style tomato recipes for which vegetables can be harvested for the winter are varied. The technology of making such snacks is not always identical. However, there are several features, knowing that tasty and appetizing tomatoes in Armenian can be closed even by an aspiring cook.
- For winter preparations, Armenians try to choose hard and fleshy fruits of small size with dense skin. Otherwise, the vegetables are deformed during cooking, will lose aesthetics and harmonious taste. The best choice will be the tomato varieties Slivka, Niagara, Moscow delicacy, Pertsevidny, Laura, Siberian troika.
- To prepare tomatoes in Armenian, you should choose unripe fruits. You can use brown and even green.
- For beauty, some housewives put tomatoes of different colors in the jar: red, brown, green. This idea is not flawless: fruits of different degrees of maturity are impregnated with brine not equally quickly, as a result, some tomatoes may turn out to be salty, others - undersalted. When staying in the marinade for a long time, their taste may even out, but still it is better to close the tomatoes of the same degree of ripeness and approximately the same size in one jar.
- When choosing a Armenian-style tomato recipe for the winter, you should be aware of the significant difference between salted and pickled vegetables. When salting, do not use vinegar, but cook the vegetables in heat, resulting in the formation of lactic acid. Salty tomatoes have a milder and more natural flavor, but may seem oversalled to many gourmets. Pickled vegetables for vinegar have a more pungent taste. Pickles can be stored only in the cold: in the refrigerator or cellar. If such conditions for the storage of canned food you can not create, you have to pickle them. Armenian pickled tomatoes stand well at room temperature.
- Regardless of the way in which Armenian tomatoes are prepared for the winter, the jars for them must be washed with soda and sterilized. The lids are also sterilized, usually by boiling. For salted tomatoes, the use of plastic caps is permissible, marinated ones are closed only with metal ones, ensuring tightness.
The shelf life of the blanks depends on the recipe used in their preparation. Salty tomatoes should not be stored for more than 6 months, pickled ones will not spoil for at least a year.
Armenian salted tomatoes
Composition (3 liters):
- medium-sized brown tomatoes - 1, 5 kg;
- water - 2, 5 l;
- salt - 125 g;
- garlic - 6 cloves;
- fresh coriander - 50 g;
- hot pepper - 1-2 pcs .;
- fresh parsley - 50 g;
- laurel leaves - 3 pcs.
Method of preparation:
- Wash greens and place them on a towel so that it dries faster due to absorbing excess liquid with a cloth.
- Boil water, dissolve salt in it. Allow the brine to cool to room temperature.
- Wash tomatoes, dry with a kitchen towel. Snip, cutting almost in half.
- Crush the garlic cloves with the flat side of a knife, chop them finely.
- Chop with greens or a knife using kitchen equipment.
- Peppers wash, cut along. Remove the seeds and partitions. Chop the remaining flesh or mince. You can grind a blender, if this method seems to you more convenient.
- Combine greens, garlic and pepper, mix well.
- Spread the stuffing on the tomatoes.
- Sterilize the jars. Put laurel leaves on the bottom. Fill the jars with tomatoes, but not to the neck.
- Fill the vegetables with brine so that it covers them completely. To prevent the vegetables from peeping out of the brine, float to the surface, drown them in it and fasten them with two wooden sticks, placing them crosswise.
- Put the jars in a bowl or pan, leave the tomatoes to ferment for three days at room temperature.
- Close the jars with tomatoes with plastic lids, store for storage in the cold.
Salted tomatoes cooked in Armenian can only be stored in a cold place and not longer than 6 months.
Armenian pickled tomatoes
Composition (9 l):
- tomatoes - 5 kg;
- water - 3 l;
- salt - 120 g;
- apple or grape vinegar (6 percent) - 0, 3 l;
- garlic - 0, 2-0, 3 kg;
- fresh greens - 0, 7-0, 8 kg;
- hot peppers - 5-10 pcs.
Method of preparation:
- Turn garlic, greens and pepper in a meat grinder or chop with a blender, mix with half the amount of salt indicated in the recipe.
- Cut the prepared tomatoes and stuff them with prepared spicy mixture.
- Place the vegetables in sterilized jars. Lay them as tightly as possible.
- Prepare the brine from the remaining salt and water, pour vinegar into it, bring to a boil.
- Fill the tomatoes with marinade, cover the jars with the prepared lids.
- At the bottom of the pan lay a towel, put a can on it. Fill the pan with water so that its level reaches the shoulders of the cans.
- Over a low heat bring the water to a boil and sterilize for 10-30 minutes depending on the volume of containers used.
- Remove the jars from the water, hermetically seal the cork, turn it over. Leave to cool, covered with a blanket, for additional preservation.
Tomatoes in this recipe are marinated without sugar, which is why they have no sweet taste, they are sharp due to the large amount of garlic and greens. These snacks are more often liked by men, but some women are not indifferent to them.
Armenian-style green tomatoes for the winter
Composition:
- green tomatoes - 2 kg;
- Bulgarian pepper - 0, 3 kg;
- carrots - 0, 2 kg;
- fresh greens - 100 g;
- salt - 50 g;
- table vinegar (9 percent) - 40 ml;
- garlic - 10 cloves;
- hot peppers - 1 pc .;
- horseradish root (optional) - to taste;
- water - 1 l.
Method of preparation:
- Carrots, chop both types of pepper, garlic and greens to a puree state in any convenient way, mix. If you use horseradish, grind it with other ingredients.
- Fill the tomatoes with the resulting mixture and cut them deeply.
- Fill the prepared jars with tomatoes.
- After boiling water, dissolve salt in it. Add vinegar, wait for re-boiling.
- Fill the vegetables with marinade. Sterilize the workpiece in a water bath. Sterilization time depends on the volume of the cans: it takes 20 minutes per liter.
- Close the cans with metal lids, turn them over and wrap them up.
After cooling, cans with snacks can be moved to the pantry or any other place where you usually store supplies for the winter.
Tomatoes in Armenian - spicy snack. It is often made from green or brown tomatoes without added sugar. Tomatoes are stuffed with a mixture of greens, peppers, garlic and other vegetables, because of which they become sharp. This preparation should be done for the winter for those who are not indifferent to savory snacks.
