Sea buckthorn is one of the most useful plants growing in Europe and Asia. At the same time, its undoubted advantages should be attributed to a very high yield: in a good year, up to 15 kg of fruit can be harvested from one tree, or even more! It is clear that eating so many berries, no matter how tasty they are, is quite problematic. Fortunately, there are many ways to preserve the harvest before winter, when the need for vitamins is particularly high. One option is to make compote. And make it much easier than it might seem!
The benefits of sea buckthorn
About the benefits of sea buckthorn can write whole volumes. We name just some of the most its useful qualities:
- Berry has a positive effect on the nervous system due to its serotonin (often referred to as "the hormone of happiness").
- Due to the biologically active components, sea buckthorn has bactericidal properties, helps to heal wounds, reduces pain.
- The orange color of the berries indicates the presence of carotene, a powerful antioxidant and immunomodulator.
- Sea buckthorn is very useful for normalizing metabolism, improving skin and liver condition (we recommend men to use the suggested compote recipe on a “gloomy morning,” this will help to cope with a hangover syndrome).
- Berries are often used in traditional medicine for the treatment of respiratory diseases of the upper respiratory tract of various nature, and sea buckthorn oil is a proven means for inhalation.
- Beta-sitosterol, which is in the fruit, makes them a natural remedy for the prevention of atherosclerosis.
- Ascorbic acid, which is also abundant in sea buckthorn, is necessary to enhance the body's defense against various infections.
- Healing fruits also have laxative and choleretic effects, so they are recommended to be used as a remedy for constipation.
- B vitamins are beneficial for everyone, but it is especially important to include them in the diet with severe mental stress (for example, students or schoolchildren during the examination period). Men need these substances to increase potency.
- Sea buckthorn is widely used in cosmetology, in particular, it is noted that it has a remarkable effect on the rate of hair growth.
Important! Proper treatment of viral infections does not require the use of medicines, especially antibiotics. The main thing is to give the patient plenty of fluids to ensure the process of sweating and prevent the body from overheating. It is better to have more sugar in the drinks, it will give the body additional energy to combat the disease. Sweet sea-buckthorn compote saturated with vitamins and useful elements in this sense is an excellent antiviral agent, especially if there are children in the house.
Kitchenware
We will prepare everything you need:
- cans with lids (for compote it is rational to use 3 l containers, as the drink is drunk very quickly, and it is simply pointless to close smaller volumes);
- seamer;
- two deep pans so that the process can be carried out in parallel (one for preparing syrup, the other for sterilizing cans and lids, and blanching sea buckthorn);
- colander;
- a glass and a teaspoon as measuring containers.
Read also about the methods of harvesting sea buckthorn for the winter and the beneficial properties of sea buckthorn juice.
Ingredient list
To make compote you need quite a bit:
- sea buckthorn berries;
- sugar;
- lemon acid;
- water.
There are no strict proportions in this recipe. Focus on the fact that you cook compote, and do not cook canned berries. Even with a small amount of fruit you can close several cans of a wonderful vitamin drink! 
Pre-preparation of berries
Proper harvesting of sea buckthorn compote requires compliance with one condition: the berries must be fresh. The maximum amount of useful substances in them is stored no more than two hours after collection. Of course, it is very difficult to achieve such results in real life, but we must strive towards them.
Learn how to quickly pick berries of sea buckthorn.
Sea-buckthorn berries are very small, so their preparation for canning will require a certain amount of time. After the harvest is gathered, the fruit must be carefully picked, removing all the twigs, dirt, leaves, as well as rotten or damaged berries (you should especially be aware of the signs of mold on the fruits).
Did you know? Most mold fungi die when the temperature rises to +100 ° C. Some can withstand such a regime for several hours, and there are species that remain viable at +650 ° C.
The compote recipe that we offer does not guarantee the death of even the least hardy types of fungi, because our task is to preserve the vitamin content in the fruit as much as possible and, consequently, limit their heat treatment. Mold that has entered the can in the process of preservation begins to actively develop in it, emitting toxic substances called mycotoxins (from the Greek "μύκης" is a mushroom). They are extremely dangerous. 
Such a product is not just not to be eaten (do not even try to save it - no subsequent heat treatment of mycotoxins will destroy), it is generally necessary to keep away from it, since couples with these poisons that have got into the respiratory tract can do even more harm than the poisoned food in the stomach.
Enumerated berries can only be thoroughly washed under running water.
Did you know? As you know, Grigory Rasputin tried to poison the cakes filled with cyanide. To the horror of the unlucky killers, the "holy old man" was absolutely insensitive to this deadly poison. The secret of this miracle is simple: the sweet cake neutralized the effect of the poison, that is why the poison did not bring the expected result.
Recipe
- First prepare the jars. Sterilizing dishes with a capacity of 3 liters is best, just pouring it with boiling water.
- Blanch the sea buckthorn. Pour the berries in a colander and drop it for a few seconds in boiling water.
- We give the water from the berries to drain and immediately put them into prepared jars (just fill of the container, but the more berries there are, the richer the compote will be).
- We put in each jar ½ tsp of citric acid: this component plays the role of a preservative.
- Simultaneously prepare the syrup. Add sugar to the boiling water at the rate of 1 cup per 1 liter of water. Boil for 10 minutes. On a three-liter jar will need about 2.5 liters of syrup.
- In a separate tank boil caps for seaming, they must be sterile.
- Quickly pour syrup into the jars (the liquid should be at the very neck, as it cools down, the level will drop slightly).
- Cover banks with lids and roll up.
- We turn the hot jars upside down and cover with a towel or rug until it cools completely.
You can sterilize cans in many ways: steam over a saucepan or kettle, in the oven, in the microwave.
Video recipe cooking sea buckthorn compote
What can be combined with sea buckthorn compote
The term “blending” is not very applicable to non-alcoholic beverages, but the very idea of mixing different varieties of fruits and berries to produce richer products is very interesting.
Did you know? "Sea buckthorn is called a tree simply because its fruits with short stems very densely cover branches. More interesting is the history of the Latin name of the plant - Hippóphaë. It comes from two Greek words: "hippos" (horse) and "phase" (brilliance). There is a legend that this name goes back to the era of military campaigns of Alexander the Great. The hard nomadic life and the constant participation in the bloody battles led to the fact that the Greeks' horses were constantly hurt. However, after someone had the idea to water horses with a decoction of berries, twigs and leaves low erevtsa growing along rivers, the animals quickly recovered, and their hair a healthy sheen and luster.
Sea buckthorn blends very well with hawthorn berries, apples, pumpkin and even such unexpected compote ingredients as zucchini and zucchini.
Large fruits are cut into small cubes - so that they are almost the size of sea-buckthorn berries. Prepared pieces are blanched in boiling water (you can slightly increase the time, proportional to the size of the pieces), then they are laid out in jars with berries and filled with syrup according to the above technology.
Read also about hawthorn harvesting for the winter, apples, pumpkins (freezing, preserves, juice, honey), zucchini.
If zucchini is added to the compote, the syrup can be made a little sweeter, but for apples, the amount of sugar, on the contrary, should be reduced.
Where it is better to store blanks
Of course, homework is best kept in the cellar, but in a city apartment it can also be done. It is enough to find a quiet and dark place with a constant temperature regime. In this state, the twist can perfectly remain until next spring.
Important! A swollen lid and a clouded liquid in a jar indicate that the compote has deteriorated. This product is not suitable for food. Some craftsmen are advised to use these drinks to make homemade wine, but we absolutely do not recommend doing this: the “wild” yeast that accumulates in the fermented compote has nothing in common with the noble mushrooms, which provide a natural alcoholic drink at the outlet!
It is not necessary to store preservation in the refrigerator, but you can take it out to the closed balcony. Too low temperatures for workpieces are also dangerous, because the liquid in them can freeze, as a result, once in the heat, the banks sometimes crack. But even if this does not happen, the contents of the jar after thawing completely lose their taste qualities: the berries lose their integrity and elasticity. 
Reducing the temperature to -5 ° C for compote is critical.
As a general rule, harvesting harvested in summer should be used during the season, so making compotes for several years ahead is basically wrong.
We advise you to read about cooking compotes of cherries, strawberries, apricots, plums, pears, apples, dogwoods, melons.
By the way, fears about the limited shelf life of sea buckthorn compote due to the fact that the bones are not removed from its berries are greatly exaggerated.
Firstly, prussic acid (amygdalin), however dangerous doses may be, is contained in the seeds of such plants as almonds, apples, cherries, apricots, plums, peaches, but sea buckthorn is not on this dangerous list.
Secondly, in order to get seriously poisoned, you need to eat a lot of seeds with hydrocyanic acid (for example, a lethal dose of amygdalin is contained in two hundred apple seeds, while in one apple there are usually no more than a dozen seeds). And finally, the most important thing: prussic acid decomposes under the influence of sugar. Thus, in sweet compote, even cherry, amygdalin cannot be! 
In a word, if you accidentally discovered a year-old jar of sea-buckthorn compote, feel free to open it and enjoy the drink, making sure that the lid is pulled inside the jar and the liquid is absolutely clear.
Tips for growing sea buckthorn at the dacha: planting and care, popular varieties, reproduction, diseases and pests.
Useful tips
To make the dish even tastier, use some additional tips:
- If there is no citric acid in the house, you can replace it with lemon or lime juice, but this ingredient cannot be completely ignored, as compote can ferment.
- Never put aspirin in the preservation. Acetylsalicylic acid has a huge number of contraindications, in many countries its use is generally prohibited. Of course, you are unlikely to see direct signs of poisoning with such a product, but your kidneys, stomach and intestines will feel them for sure. The effectiveness of aspirin as a preservative has not yet been proven.
- When sterilizing cans, never pour boiling water into them immediately: the glass may crack. First, wash the container with warm water, then pour water into it heated to + 60-70 ° C, wait a little, drain it and only after that pour boiling water.
- No need to cook the berries along with the syrup: the more you give them heat treatment, the less nutrients in them remains.
- Sometimes you can find recipes with a higher sugar content in the syrup. Such a spin is less likely to “explode”, but too sweet a compote is a drink for an amateur, and diluting it with water after opening the can is just like diluting borsch with water! But if you are not confident and have no experience in canning, of course, you can make sure.
- Do not be afraid to experiment: it is not necessary to add the ingredients listed above to the compote. You can use any fruit that could be collected, perhaps the taste of the finished dish will pleasantly surprise you!
Sea buckthorn compote is an excellent anti-cold remedy for the winter, but it is not necessary to drink it as a medicine. The complete process of making such a billet will take no more than an hour, and the result can be enjoyed throughout the cold season!
