Fresh asparagus or asparagus are often used in cooking. It has a special taste and valuable chemical composition, but fresh has a very short shelf life. Therefore, experienced housewives prefer to give this product processing in order to increase the duration of its storage. In order to keep the asparagus elastic and tasty during the cooking process, you need to choose the right ingredients for the snack, follow the cooking technique and store the resulting workpieces in the right conditions. About all this - later in the article.
Selection and preparation of ingredients
In order for the cooked appetizer to have a pleasant taste and the asparagus to remain crispy, you need to choose the right ingredients for the canned asparagus dish.
Did you know? Green asparagus was grown in ancient Greece more than 2500 years ago.
When choosing this product, you must follow these recommendations:
- for workpieces use smooth, green fruits without mechanical damage and dents;
- asparagus must be preserved no later than 3 days after collection, so that it retains elasticity;
- the most delicious canned snacks are obtained from young and juicy asparagus;
- before processing, asparagus should be kept in the refrigerator so that it remains fresh and crispy;
- during preliminary blanching of fruits, they can be lowered into boiling water for no more than 5 minutes - with a longer heat treatment they lose their shape and become too soft.
The best recipes for preparations
Harvesting asparagus for the winter can be done in various ways. This product may be part of a canned vegetable salad, but it can also be pickled and prepared as an independent dish. The process of processing asparagus is very simple, so even a novice hostess will be able to cook tasty and fragrant canned food from it.
The basic step-by-step recipes for preparing this product for the winter are listed below.
Pickled asparagus
3 cans of 0.5 l1 hour 30 minutes
black peppercorns
4 tsp
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Rinse greens and asparagus. Remove the tails of the fruit and cut them into pieces of suitable size. Place the product in a bowl of cold water for 1 hour.
- Peel the onion and garlic. Cut hot pepper into halves, remove seeds from the vegetable.
- Chop onion and hot pepper in long slices. Prepare sterilized jars.
- Boil water in a small saucepan, add salt, sugar and vinegar. Dip the asparagus into a boiling marinade, boil it for 2-3 minutes, and then remove from boiling water.
- At the bottom of each jar, put pieces of onion and hot pepper, garlic, mustard seeds, black peppercorns and dill.
- Fill jars with spices with asparagus slices. Pour containers with hot marinade, and then cover with lids and allow them to cool slightly. Then roll up the cans.
Did you know? From the Latin language, the word "asparagus" is translated as "stem".
Salted asparagus
5 cans of 0.5 l1 hour 30 minutes
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Rinse the asparagus under water, cut the tails of the fruit. Fold them in a deep bowl, pour boiling water for several minutes.
- Drain hot water from a bowl of vegetables, fold the asparagus into a colander to drain the liquid. Then put the fruits on a towel and let them cool slightly.
- Cut asparagus into small pieces. Fold them tightly into prepared sterilized jars.
- Dissolve the salt in a saucepan with water, bring the mixture to a boil on the stove. Pour vinegar into the marinade and remove the container from the heat.
- Pour jars of ingredients with hot brine, cover containers with lids.
- Place the blanks in a wide pot of warm water, placed on the stove, wait for the water to boil.
- Keep the jars of snacks in boiling water for about 40 minutes. Then remove them from the pan and roll them up.
Important! So that the jars with the workpiece do not crack while they are in the pot with boiling water, a towel should be laid at the bottom of the water tank.
Frozen
3 kg20 minutes
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Rinse fruit thoroughly under running water. Trim the tails of the asparagus.
- Arrange the vegetables on a dry towel so that they dry out a little.
- Cut the fruit into pieces of the right size. Divide the entire quantity of the product into small portions of 300 g.
- Place each serving of vegetable in a separate plastic bag. You can also freeze the product in plastic containers.
- Tie a bag, having previously released air from it. Place packed asparagus in the freezer.
Blanching asparagus before freezingImportant! Before freezing, asparagus can be blanched in boiling water for 3-4 minutes, and then immersed in ice water for 5 minutes.
Dried
3 kg20 minutes / 10 hours
Nutritional value per 100 g:
- Rinse fruits under running water, remove ponytails.
- Put asparagus on a towel so that it is completely dry.
- Cut asparagus into pieces of equal length to the desired size. Submerge them in boiling water for 3 minutes, and then remove the fruits from boiling water and throw them in ice water for several minutes.
- Extract vegetables from the water. Blot them with a towel to completely remove drops of liquid from the asparagus surface.
- Heat the oven to + 50 ° C. Put vegetables on a baking sheet in a thin layer. Dry the asparagus in the oven with the door open for 10 hours. Periodically, the fruits need to be mixed.
- Place the dried product in clean glass jars, tightly close the containers with lids.
Important! Dried asparagus has almost no taste of its own, but is able to absorb the taste and aroma of other vegetables. Before use, it is recommended to soak the product in cold water.
Features of storage of blanks
In order for asparagus preparations to remain tasty for a long period of time, certain rules must be followed when storing them. Storage features of this product depend on the method of cooking:
- canned preparations must be kept in a dark and cool place - in such conditions they remain usable for a year;
- frozen asparagus can be stored in the freezer for 18 months, but re-freezing asparagus is not recommended - in this case it will lose shape;
- an open jar with canned workpiece can only be stored in the refrigerator for several days;
- dried asparagus is stored in a tightly closed glass container for 18 months at an air temperature of + 25 ° C and a humidity of 75%.
Subject to all proportions of the main ingredients and the sequence of actions indicated in the recipes, you can get spicy and aromatic asparagus blanks for every taste. And if you provide them with the correct storage conditions, then cooked snacks will delight the whole family with their taste until spring.