Gentle leaf sorrel with a slight sourness among the first appear in the gardens in the spring. The plant is used as the main ingredient for "green borscht" and in pie fillings. Ways of conservation will help to eat this healthy herbs all year round.
Sorrel in frozen or canned form remains a storehouse of organic acids and vitamins. This leaf vegetable increases immunity to viruses and bacteria, and has a beneficial effect on the digestive tract and the cardiac system. You can list its merits for a long time. And for regular use you need to prepare valuable greens for future use.
Storage preparation
To save sorrel for several days, you can simply put it in the vegetable compartment of the refrigerator. For long-term supply of leaves should be pre-processed. Buying or tearing greens, it is recommended to do the following:
- It is necessary to sort out the sorrel. Remove the arrows of flowers, yellowed leaves, excess grass, cut off the damaged parts.
- Soaked in a large basin with cool water - this will help them deal, releasing particles of earth, which will go to the bottom. Placing the plant in salted water allows you to get rid of small insects that remain imperceptible in the first stage of processing.
- Skimmer get greens from the liquid, laid out on towels to dry.
- Produced sliced, facilitating the subsequent preparation of dishes.
- Packed in containers that will be stored.
Ways to save without cooling
Drying a vegetable is an affordable way to prepare it for future use. The shelf life in this form is a year, provided that the sorrel is folded into a container that excludes moisture. Taste remains unchanged.- The leaves are sorted and thoroughly washed, allowed to drain. Then cut, spread on a towel or parchment, cover with a napkin. Put greens under the sun's rays for drying.
- The prepared plant is laid out in a sieve. Tara put on the balcony or in the kitchen on the wardrobe. Twice a day, the herbs are stirred. You can determine readiness by evaluating the fragility of sorrel - dried leaves should not crumble.
- Sorrel is collected in small bouquets that hang on the balcony, hiding from the sun. After 1-1.5 weeks, the plant will acquire the necessary condition.
- Canned sorrel can be stored for about two years. Thus, assorted greens are harvested by adding parsley or dill. The leaves are washed, cut and tightly folded in sterilized jars, pour boiling water. Tara roll covers and leave to cool, turning upside down. The temperature of the subsequent storage is not more than 25 degrees.
- Sorrel is washed and loaded into the pan cut or whole. Pour boiling water so that the leaves of the plant were slightly under water. After boiling for 5 minutes, it is poured into sterilized jars, which are sealed tightly. At room temperature, the shelf life will be 12 months.
The recipe can be supplemented using salt water (2 tablespoons salt per 1 liter of boiling water). A similar method - preservation in cold water. In this case, banks with fresh sorrel are sterilized for a quarter of an hour in a saucepan with boiling water, after which they are twisted.
Drying a vegetable is an affordable way to prepare it for future use. The shelf life in this form is a year, provided that the sorrel is folded into a container that excludes moisture. Taste remains unchanged.The convenience of these methods is that the sorrel is completely ready for use. Add as much greenery to the dish as you see fit.
Procurement methods with cooling, but without freezing
How to save for a week? Without a freezer at +5 degrees properly prepared greens will lie up to 2 weeks, depending on the method chosen. The best place is a box for vegetables and fruits.
- In containers. Salt as a preservative has been used since ancient times. Sorrel can be pickled in assorted or independently. To do this, it is washed, cut, remove moisture. Put the greens in the dish and pour 3 tablespoons of salt per kilogram of the product, mix. The mixture is packed into a dry sterilized jar and stored in a refrigerator for up to 6 months.
- Vacuum packed. The device, which removes air from the packages, allows to increase the shelf life of products. Sorrel is sorted, removing debris and rot, washed in clean water and dried. You can not waste time on cutting, because during the compression the greens will break naturally. Fold in the bag and turn on the vacuum. In the refrigerator, safety is guaranteed for up to two weeks.
- In cellophane. Sorrel is soaked in salted water, then washed in running water., Dried. The cut leaves are folded in cellophane packaging, manually removed the air and tightly tied. Eat a vegetable should be within a week, after which it begins to rot.
- In water. Washed and prepared sorrel is collected in the form of a bouquet, which should be put in a jar of water. In the liquid should be only the trunks of the plant. On the middle shelf of the refrigerator near the wall, the greens will remain fresh no more than a quarter of a week.
- In the towel. Washed leaves are wrapped tightly in a wet towel. Bundles put on the shelf of the refrigerator.
Sorrel can be there for up to three days.
Will these methods be suitable for saving for the winter?
Which method is suitable for harvesting in the winter at home to keep the leaves tasty? Not all methods boast long storage. To be able to eat tasty and healthy sorrel all year round, choose the following methods of preparation:
- drying;
- canning;
- vacuum packaging, placed in a freezer;
- freezing whole or cut leaves.
Contact with air accelerates decomposition. Therefore, storage at low temperatures or in an oxygen-free environment is considered preferable.
Sorrel will retain its properties and will last longer if proper preliminary training is carried out. Do not try to cut the leaves as small as possible - because of this, all the juice will flow out, and the plant will turn into a mess. There are recommendations to wipe the greens from dirt with a cloth edge. This is fundamentally not true - the leaves of the sorrel are delicate, and from mechanical action they will become like rags. After washing, the water is removed with shaking movements.
