Any dish with a sauce looks better, not to mention the variety of flavors that can be obtained thanks to a simple recipe for spicy, sweet and sour or spicy additives, even to ordinary fried potatoes for breakfast.
Hothouse harvest of spicy leafy greens in winter in supermarkets is expensive, and, frankly, it does not smell like anything. Another thing - the harvest of dill, parsley, cilantro, celery, collected on its own garden bed: the aroma is felt brighter, and there is an excess of vitamins, and the cost price pleases. Even if there is no summer property in the property, it’s all the same to buy fresh greens on the market in the summer is much nicer, and to stock up for the future with all available means. It is also better to cook sauces with greens and garlic in the summer to serve with meat and fish, supplement the summer aroma with delicious main dishes in the winter.
Green Sauce - Basic Technological Principles
Cooking sauces does not require any special efforts, but there are special subtleties, as in any business.
It is clear that elementary sanitary standards are required for winter harvesting in order to preserve winter stocks: sterilization of cans and lids, careful sorting of products, cleaning, washing. Sauces intended for long-term storage at room temperature are subject to mandatory pasteurization. These canning rules have long been known to every hostess.
In each jar harvested for the winter, the maximum amount of useful substances must be preserved, but for sauces, besides this requirement, it is important to preserve the aroma and taste as much as possible, because their main purpose is to supplement dishes, just as a spicy and aromatic additive. Therefore, remember some tricks that will be useful when canning:
Spicy greens smell because it contains essential oils that quickly evaporate. This means that prepared parsley, dill and other herbs should be sealed as soon as possible, immediately after chopping. The best preservative for essential oils is refined vegetable oil with a neutral taste and smell. Such oils are called transport. Unstable essential oils combine with vegetable fat, dissolving in it and saturating with its aroma: the more spicy greens are placed in a jar of oil, the brighter and more saturated is the smell of sauce. Add water when preserving herbs is not worth it. It does not contribute to an increase in the concentration of essential oils, but, on the contrary, dissolves them, and when heated, evaporates along with them.
If for some reason you do not want to use vegetable oil in canning, and the volume of the freezer allows you to place stocks of spicy leafy greens in portioned sachets, then prepare an ordinary green paste from fresh leaves, grinding them in a blender. In winter, it will be necessary to add it to the base of the sauce, together with spices, so that the spicy additive smells of summer aroma. This method of preparation is very convenient, because it saves a lot of time. In frozen greens, much more vitamins are stored. The disadvantage of this method of preparation is unforeseen emergencies in which the power supply is turned off, and the entire stock may die suddenly as a result of defrosting. If the frozen berries can still be saved in such a situation, by urgently “running a home cannery” in the middle of winter, then things are different with spicy greens: after defrosting, it loses its valuable properties. Choose methods of canning and preserving the harvest, taking into account all the risks, your conditions and opportunities.
In addition to the composition of such blanks, you can include hot peppers, tomatoes, spices, but with the addition of garlic in canning sauces do not rush. It has long been observed that the smell of garlic changes during heat treatment, and when canned in oil, it becomes almost unrecognizable. Therefore, if the task is to prepare a sauce with greens and garlic, in which there should be a characteristic fresh smell, just leave the right amount of garlic until winter, putting it separately for storage, and in the winter, open the jar with the sauce, add it in the right amount. Such a technique would create the feeling that the sauce was made not in the summer, but an hour before dinner. This trick is useful if you make a billet of spicy greens for a cold cream sauce, for making sauces based on flour broths in winter. However, in those recipes for winter preparations, where there is a tomato and pepper, garlic will be quite appropriate, even in canned form. Interacting with acid, it creates a harmony of taste. It follows from the above that it is necessary to think out and present the final result, which must be achieved by placing summer vitamins in a jar.
In any case, the reserves of spicy leafy greens, even in semi-finished form in the winter will come in very handy. Now look at the recipes, how it can be done.
1. Simple sauce with greens and garlic
Herbs and garlic are classics for all sauces and dressings. An interesting point: the smell of fresh cilantro is not liked by everyone, but in many Caucasian and Asian dishes it is present, and there are few people who say that they do not like kebab, lobio, carrots in Korean and others that have become popular in the European part. mainland dishes. The trick is that in combination with garlic cilantro leaves acquire a completely new flavor, and coriander (cilantro seeds) perfectly harmonizes with the clove.
Sauce options with herbs and garlic can be counted even more than a hundred. It is difficult to guess in advance which one of them will like and need for cooking in the winter, but any hostess tries to do everything possible not to be caught off guard. Therefore, prepare several basic options of green and garlic sauce for the winter kitchen.
Ingredients:
The first way:
Refined oil 1 part
Salt
Cilantro 1-1.5 pieces
Garlic 1/5 part from the mass of leafy greens
The second way:
Dill and parsley
Salt
Refined oil
The third way:
Green pepper, capsicum, spicy
Cilantro
Parsley
Garlic
Coriander
Carnation
Salt
Fourth way:
Mint
Lemons
Parsley and dill
Butter
Salt
Cooking:
All ingredients for the preparations are taken in arbitrary quantities: spicy additives and spices - is voluntary. In those cases where cilantro is not included in the preparation, garlic is added in winter, after opening the can, according to taste or according to the recipe of the main dish. The essence of the process: the prepared components of the sauce, in any variant, are ground into a paste, combined with warmed-up purified oil, mixed thoroughly and packed tightly into sterile jars, “on the neck”. After that, the banks can be covered with lids, pasteurized in boiling water, heated in an oven heated to 95-100 ° C.
Pasteurization time depends on the volume of the container. The sauce, as a rule, canned in small containers - 0.2-0.5 l, depending on the frequency of its further use. Jars with a volume of 0.2 - 0.25 l pasteurize for not more than 10 minutes, and containers with a capacity of 0.5 l - 15 minutes. After pasteurization, the banks should be immediately and tightly capped, covered with warm cloth, and after cooling, removed in a dark place. You can store such blanks at room temperature, just remember that the oil “does not like” bright light.
The list of recipes for greens with garlic sauces is not limited to the proposed options. Choose one of these recipes, add or, on the contrary, remove the “extra” components from the composition, at your own discretion. The main thing is that the main points are clear: sterile dishes, hot refined oil, green spicy leaf paste, packaging, pasteurization and immediate capping.
2. Tomato sauce “for all occasions” - the basis for the first and second courses, for seasonings
The largest group of sauces in world cuisine is prepared on the basis of tomatoes. Agree, it is very convenient and easy to prepare a tomato-sour cream sauce in the winter when there is a jar of bright and spicy mashed potatoes in the pantry. You can make this sauce in several ways at once: with a spicy, sweet-sour or savory taste. Just do not forget to make stickers for each jar, so that later it is easy to find the desired composition. In the preparation of tomato sauces, oil is not the main component, but remember that it preserves and enhances the aroma of spicy greens, although in the case of using hot pepper it is important to take into account that its burning properties are significantly enhanced in conjunction with vegetable fat. Method one. Ingredients:
Onions 1 kg
Carrots 0.5 kg (net)
Sugar
Ripe tomatoes, grated 1.5 l
Pepper "Ratunda" 0.8 kg (net)
Garlic 100g (net)
Ground coriander
Salt
Carnation
Bay leaf
Oil, vegetable 300 ml
Parsley and cilantro to taste
Chile (powder)
Cooking:
Wash the vegetables. Bake the peeled onions, carrots and peppers whole in the oven until soft, on a baking sheet covered with foil. Carrots and onions before baking, rub with butter, sprinkle with sugar. Peel off peels, remove seeds and wipe. Combine with tomato puree. Baked vegetables in a blender. Connect the prepared components, pour in the oil and boil in the mode of languor until the volume is reduced by half. Then smash the garlic and greens into the paste, add them to the saucepan. Try the sauce. When hot, it should appear salty and taste sharper. Tomit it for another five minutes and pour into hot sterile jars. Pasteurization time - 15 minutes. Then - immediate capping. Invert hot jars and cover. After cooling, transfer to the pantry.
The second way. Ingredients: the same components that are listed in the first method, but add 700-800 g of baked eggplants to them, without skin and 200 ml of apple cider vinegar.
Cooking is similar to the first method. Eggplants are ground together with baked vegetables, and vinegar is added together with garlic and spices, at the very end of cooking.
The third way. Ingredients: instead of mashed fresh tomatoes - mashed their baked apples, sugar, replace honey, add green tomatoes without skin and grains, in the amount of 0.5 kg, the other components - as in the first method.
3. Sauce with greens and garlic - Abkhazian adjika
Immediately, we note that each popular dish has as many cooking methods as there are housewives in the kitchen, and one can never confidently say that one or the other recipe does not deserve attention. Abkhaz green adjika is a popular seasoning. The amount of ingredients in it is regulated arbitrarily, in accordance with the individual taste, but the idea of adding chopped walnut kernels to spicy and spicy sauce is admirable, no matter who it is. Ingredients:
Cilantro 120g
Basil 150g
Dill and parsley 300 g
Coriander 20 g
Garlic 180g
Chile (green pods) 12-15 pcs.
Walnuts (kernels) 180 g
Salt
Cooking:
To adjika had a beautiful emerald color, use pepper in the stage of technical ripeness. This sauce is very salty and very spicy, but you should not change the proportions of the ingredients in order to preserve the identity. Just carefully use it in the finished form, when added to dishes.
Wash the leafy greens and shake off excess moisture, let the leaves dry. Grind all prepared ingredients in any of the available ways: skip 2-3 times through a fine grid of the meat grinder, along with salt, use a blender or a combine to make pasta. Put the finished adjika into sterile jars, cover with lids and leave for 48-72 hours at room temperature. It is necessary to begin the process of fermentation, as a result of which the Abkhaz adjika will acquire a special taste, which has brought great popularity. After transfer the banks in the cold.
4. Green sauces for dessert
Any desserts with sauce look more appetizing. There are sweet sauces, based on berry or fruit juices, mashed potatoes and syrups, but the sauce for dessert, which has a bright green color, and a sudden mint flavor combined with honey or citrus sweetness always look elegant and unusual.
Ingredients:
Mint and lemon balm 400 g
Sugar 1.5 kg
Gooseberry 1.0 kg
Oranges 3 pcs.
Cooking:
Wash spicy herb and chop, chop into a paste, adding a little sugar. Wash the oranges, pour boiling water over them. Do the same with gooseberries. Then wipe the gooseberries through a sieve, removing the seeds. Add in the mashed oranges, chopped to the same puree mass. Puree pour into a saucepan, add sugar and cook for 20 minutes. Five minutes before the end of cooking add a paste of mint and lemon balm. Let boil, then immediately lay in a hot sterile jars. After cooling, transfer the jam sauce to the pantry. This sauce is suitable for ice cream, cottage cheese casseroles, cakes. It can be used to make desserts based on cream, sour cream.
5. Sauce of sour cream and greens with semi-finished product for boiled potatoes and baked breast
Any billet can be used in the winter, as an independent ready-made sauce, or as a semi-finished product, by adding the spicy billet to an egg, dairy base or a thick mass cooked from broth and flour. The advantage of summer sauces from the can in winter is most noticeable. Try to cook with the sauce the simplest dish.
Ingredients:
Onions, bulb 2 pcs.
Flour 1 tablespoon
Margarine 120g
Sour cream 200 g
Broth or milk 1 cup
Green sauce (recipe number 1, the second method) 2-3 spoons
Garlic
Boiled potatoes
Breast
Cooking:
Fry the flour to cream color, add the fat. Pass the onion and pour the sour cream with milk or broth and pour into the saucepan. Bring mass to a thickening, stirring continuously. Rub through a sieve and add to the thick mass of canned sauce-billet and a clove of garlic, pre-ground it, and ground pepper to taste. The sauce of sour cream and greens is ready.
Boil the potatoes, fry the chicken breast, or bake the meat and potatoes with the sauce in the oven.
6. Potatoes with meat, stewed in tomato sauce in pots
All variants of the second recipe are perfect for baked meat or for your favorite roast. With tomato sauce, prepared according to the first method of recipe No. 2, it is very simple to prepare, considering that it contains all the ingredients necessary for roast.
Ingredients:
Boiled potatoes
Pork neck
Tomato sauce
Pepper
Cooking:
Cut bold pork into large cubes, fry in a pan until half cooked, seasoned with ground pepper. Boiled potatoes cut into cubes or slices. Spread the meat and potatoes equally into the pots, pour over the sauce and bake for twenty minutes in the oven.
Green sauces - useful tips
Pay special attention to the preparation of tomatoes for all tomato sauces. Although not each of them has a uniform pasty consistency, as is the case with popular salsa types, but the skin and grains of tomatoes in a sauce do not always look aesthetically pleasing and appetizing.
Therefore, ripe tomatoes for puree-like sauces must be pre-wiped to remove excess, and in case the recipe should contain slices, thick tomatoes, red or green, blanch, peel, remove the grains and then cut or chop into a blender, grinder or using a shredder (combine).
When preparing peppers for making sauces, take into account their sharpness, work with gloves, and choose metallic stainless or ceramic, with a glossy finish, dishes, which is most convenient in such cases.
