Any dish with 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.
The greenhouse harvest of spicy leafy greens in winter is expensive in supermarkets, and frankly, it doesn’t smell much. Another thing is the harvest of dill, parsley, cilantro, celery, harvested in its own garden: the aroma is felt brighter, and an excess of vitamins is present, and the cost is good. Even if there is no summer cottage in the property, then anyway, buying fresh herbs on the market in the summer is much more pleasant, and stocking it up for the future with all available means. Sauces with herbs and garlic are also better prepared in the summer to serve meat and fish, complement the delicious summer main dishes in the winter with a summer aroma.
Greens sauce - basic technological principles
The preparation of sauces does not require special efforts, but there are special subtleties, as in any business.
It is clear that winter harvesting requires the implementation of basic sanitary standards to preserve winter supplies: sterilization of cans and lids, careful sorting of products, cleaning, and washing. Sauces intended for long-term storage at room temperature are subject to obligatory pasteurization. These canning rules have long been known to every housewife.
In each jar prepared for the winter, the maximum amount of nutrients must be preserved, but for sauces, in addition to this requirement, the maximum preservation of aroma and taste is important, because their main purpose is to complement dishes, namely as a spicy-aromatic additive. Therefore, remember some tricks that are 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 oils. Unstable essential oils combine with vegetable fat, dissolving in it and saturating with its aroma: the more spicy greens fit in a jar of oil, the brighter and richer the smell of the sauce. Add water when preserving greens is not worth it. It does not increase the concentration of essential oils, but, on the contrary, dissolves them, and when heated, evaporates with them.
If for some reason you do not want to use vegetable oil for canning, and the volume of the freezer allows you to place stocks of spicy leafy greens in portioned packets, then prepare ordinary green pasta from fresh leaves, chopping them in a blender. In winter, it will remain to add it to the base of the sauce, along with spices, so that the spicy additive smelled the aroma of summer. This method of harvesting is very convenient, because it saves a lot of time. Frozen greens conserve significantly more vitamins. The disadvantage of this procurement method is unforeseen emergency situations in which the power supply is turned off, and the entire supply may die suddenly, as a result of defrosting. If frozen berries can still be saved in such a situation by urgently “launching a home canning factory” in the middle of winter, then things are different with spicy greens: after defrosting, it loses its valuable properties. Choose methods of preserving and preserving the crop, taking into account all the risks, your conditions and capabilities.
In addition, hot peppers, tomatoes, spices can be included in such preparations, but do not rush with the addition of garlic when preserving sauces. It has long been noticed that the smell of garlic changes during heat treatment, and when preserved in oil, it becomes almost unrecognizable. Therefore, if the task is to prepare a sauce with herbs and garlic, in which a characteristic fresh smell should be present, then just leave the right amount of garlic until winter, putting it separately for storage, and in winter, opening a jar of sauce, add in the right amount. Such a reception will create the feeling that the sauce was not prepared in the summer, but an hour before dinner. This trick is useful if you make a preparation of spicy greens for cold sour cream sauce, for preparing sauces based on broths with flour in winter.
However, in those recipes of winter preparations where tomato and pepper are present, garlic will be quite appropriate even in canned form. Interacting with acid, it creates a harmony of taste. From what has been said, it follows that you need to think carefully and imagine the final result that you need to achieve by putting summer vitamins in a jar.
In any case, stocks of spicy leafy greens, even in semi-finished form in winter, will come in handy. Now let's see in the recipes how this can be done.
1. A simple sauce with herbs and garlic
Spicy herbs and garlic - a classic for all sauces and dressings. An interesting point: not everyone likes the smell of fresh cilantro, but it is present in many Caucasian and Asian dishes, and there are few people who say that they do not like kebab, lobio, Korean carrots 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) is in perfect harmony with cloves.
Options sauce with herbs and garlic can be counted even more than a hundred. It is difficult to guess which one will be liked and needed for cooking in the winter, but any housewife tries to do everything possible so as not to be taken by surprise. Therefore, prepare at once several basic options for green garlic sauce for winter cuisine.
Ingredients:
First way:
Refined oil 1 part
Salt
Cilantro 1-1.5 parts
Garlic 1/5 part by weight of leafy greens
The second way:
Dill and Parsley
Salt
Refined Oil
The third way:
Green pepper, chilli, hot
Cilantro
Parsley
Garlic
Coriander
Clove
Salt
The fourth way:
Mint
Lemons
Parsley and dill
Butter
Salt
Cooking:
All ingredients for the blanks are taken in arbitrary quantities: spicy additives and spices are voluntary. In those cases where cilantro is not part of the workpiece, garlic is added in the winter, after opening the can, to taste or according to the recipe for the main dish.
The essence of the process: prepared components of the sauce in any case are crushed into a paste, combined with warmed refined oil, mixed thoroughly and packed tightly in sterile jars, "neck". After this, the jars can be covered with lids, pasteurized in boiling water, and warmed in an oven heated to 95-100 ° C.
Pasteurization time depends on the volume of the container. Sauce, as a rule, canned in small containers - 0.2-0.5 liters, depending on the frequency of its further use. Pasteurize jars with a volume of 0.2 - 0.25 l for no more than 10 minutes, and containers with a capacity of 0.5 l for 15 minutes. After pasteurization, the jars should be immediately and tightly corked, covered with a 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 lighting.
The list of recipes for greens and garlic sauces with the proposed options is not limited. Choose one of these recipes, add or, conversely, 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 pasta from spicy leaves, packaging, pasteurization and immediate corking.
2. Tomato sauce "for all occasions" - the basis for the first and second courses, for seasonings
The largest group of sauces in the world of cooking is prepared on the basis of tomatoes. You must admit that it is very convenient and easy to prepare tomato-sour cream sauce in the winter when there is a jar of bright and spicy mashed potatoes in the pantry. Such a sauce can be prepared in several versions at once: with a spicy, sweet and sour or spicy 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 hot pepper it is important to consider that its burning properties will significantly increase in combination with vegetable fat.
The first way. Ingredients:
Onion 1 kg
Carrots 0.5 kg (net)
Sugar
Ripe tomatoes, mashed 1.5 l
Ratunda pepper 0.8 kg (net)
Garlic 100 g (net)
Ground coriander
Salt
Clove
Bay leaf
Vegetable oil 300 ml
Parsley and cilantro to taste
Chile (powder)
Cooking:
Wash the vegetables. Bake whole onions, carrots and peppers in the oven until tender, on a baking sheet covered with foil. Before baking, grate the carrots and onions with butter, sprinkle with sugar. Peel peppers, remove seeds and wipe. Combine with tomato puree. Baked vegetables in a blender. Combine the prepared components, pour in the oil and boil in the simmering mode until the volume is halved. Then beat the garlic and herbs in the paste, add them to the pan with spices. Try the sauce. When hot, it should seem salty and sharper in taste. Stew it for another five minutes and pour it into hot, sterile jars. Pasteurization time - 15 minutes. Then - immediate capping. Turn the hot jars over and cover. After cooling, transfer to the pantry.
The second way. Ingredients: the same components that are indicated in the first method, but add 700-800 g of baked eggplant, without skin and 200 ml of apple cider vinegar to them.
Cooking is similar to the first method. Eggplant is chopped along with baked vegetables, and vinegar is added along with garlic and spices at the very end of cooking.
The third way. Ingredients: instead of mashed fresh tomatoes - mashed their baked apples, replace sugar with honey, add green tomatoes without skin and grains, in an amount of 0.5 kg, the remaining components - as in the first method.
3. Sauce with herbs and garlic - adjika in Abkhazian
Just note that each popular dish has as many cooking methods as there are housewives in the kitchen, and you can never confidently say that one or another 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 a spicy and spicy sauce is admirable, no matter who it is.
Ingredients:
Cilantro 120 g
Basil 150 g
Dill and parsley 300 g
Coriander 20 g
Garlic 180 g
Chili (green pods) 12-15 pcs.
Nuts, 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 it is not worth changing the proportions of the ingredients in order to maintain identity. Just use it carefully when ready to use when adding to dishes.
Wash leafy greens and shake off excess moisture, let the leaves dry. Grind all the prepared ingredients in any of the available ways: pass 2-3 times through a fine grid of a meat grinder, together with salt, use a blender or a combine to prepare the paste. Put the finished adjika in sterile jars, cover with lids and leave for 48-72 hours at room temperature. It is necessary that the fermentation process begins, as a result of which the Abkhaz adjika will acquire a special taste, which brought great popularity. Then transfer the jars to the cold.
4. Dessert greens sauces
Any desserts with sauce look more appetizing. There are sweet sauces based on berry or fruit juices, mashed potatoes and syrups, but dessert sauce, which has a bright green color, and a sudden mint flavor in combination with honey or citrus sweetness, always looks elegant and unusual.
Ingredients:
Mint and lemon balm 400 g
Sugar 1.5 kg
Gooseberry 1.0 kg
Oranges 3 pcs.
Cooking:
Wash spicy grass 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 oranges, crushed to the same puree mass, in the cooked puree. Pour the puree into a saucepan, add sugar and cook for 20 minutes. Five minutes before the end of cooking, add the mint and lemon balm paste. Let it boil, then immediately put it into hot sterile jars. After cooling, transfer the jam jam to the pantry.
This sauce is suitable for ice cream, cottage cheese casseroles, pies. It can be used to make desserts based on cream, sour cream.
5. Sour cream and greens sauce with semi-finished product for boiled potatoes and baked breast
Any preparation can be used in winter, either as an independent ready-made sauce, or in the form of a semi-finished product by adding a spicy preparation to an egg, milk base or a thick mass cooked from broth and flour. The advantage of summer sauces from a can in the winter is most noticeable. Try to make the simplest dish with such a sauce.
Ingredients:
Onion, 2 pcs.
Flour 1 tablespoon
Margarine 120 g
Sour cream 200 g
Broth or milk 1 cup
Greens sauce (recipe No. 1, second method) 2-3 tablespoons
Garlic
Boiled potatoes
Breast
Cooking:
Fry flour until creamy, add fat. Passer the onion and, combining sour cream with milk or broth, pour into the stewpan. Bring mass to thickening, stirring continuously. Wipe through a sieve and add to the thick mass of canned sauce-harvesting and a clove of garlic, after grinding it, and ground pepper to taste. Sour cream and herbs sauce is ready.
Boil potatoes, fry chicken breast, or bake meat with potatoes in the oven sauce.
6. Potatoes with meat, stewed in tomato sauce in pots
All variants of the second recipe are perfect for baked meat or for a favorite roast for everyone. With tomato sauce prepared according to the first method of recipe No. 2, cooking is very simple, given that it contains all the ingredients necessary for a roast.
Ingredients:
Boiled potatoes
Pork neck
Tomato sauce
Pepper
Cooking:
Cut the bold pork into large cubes, fry in a pan until half cooked, seasoning with ground pepper. Cut the boiled potatoes into cubes or slices. Arrange the meat and potatoes equally in pots, pour the sauce and bake for twenty minutes in the oven.
Green Sauces - Useful Tips
Pay particular attention to preparing tomatoes for all tomato sauces. Although not all of them have a homogeneous pasty consistency, as is the case with popular types of salsa, the skin and grains of tomatoes in the sauce do not always look aesthetically pleasing.
Therefore, ripe tomatoes for puree-like consistency sauces must first be wiped to remove excess, and if, according to the recipe, the sauce must contain slices, dense tomatoes, red or green, blanch, peel, remove the grains and then cut or chop in a blender, meat grinder or using a shredder (combine harvester).
When preparing peppers for cooking sauces, take into account their severity, work with gloves, pick up stainless metal or ceramic, with a glossy finish, dishes that are most convenient in such cases.
