Summer.
The strawberry season has come again.
It is difficult to find a person who does not like this berry.
Only those to whom it is completely contraindicated, because it causes an allergy, can refuse such a treat.
A healthy part of the world's population eats up and stocks up. Strawberries are even credited with magical properties!
Everything can be.
It is really very useful, but even if you eat a whole bucket in season, this stock of vitamins and minerals will not be enough even until the end of summer, not to mention winter. But you really want to enjoy this aroma, looking out the window at the snow-covered roofs of the city!
Therefore, again we do an audit in the pantries, prepare containers, tools, check recipes on culinary portals and get down to business.
Strawberries with sugar - basic technological principles
For procurement, nothing supernatural is required. The special smell of strawberries is completely self-sufficient. If you really want something very unusual, you can experiment.
But now we will only talk about strawberries with sugar. Recipes, or rather - different ways of preparing it below are attached in several versions. Just first, a few words about which berries are suitable for canning. Yes, repetition is the key to preserving the crop.
The most tedious process is collecting and sorting berries, but it is to this stage that you need to pay special attention and be patient.
The best jam is obtained from berries that fall into the jars directly from the garden, without damage by their long transportation and storage in the refrigerator or in the sun. Under such conditions, the delicate berries of a strawberry take on a depressing appearance, and of which little can be preserved according to a conceived recipe. If nevertheless, for lack of a summer residence, you have to buy strawberries in the market, then choose slightly unripe berries. Such a defect in berries is easy to fix: even a green berry can be turned into a ripe one if it is spread on a sheet of foil, covered with a second sheet and pinch the edges tightly to isolate the berries from the air. In this case, the berries should not be in contact with each other. After 5-6 hours, open it and turn it over. Cover with foil again, and you can begin to prepare the dishes and containers.
For summer residents, there are no problems with buying berries, but such a technique can come in handy, especially in rainy summers.
If you want the berries in the jar to be large and beautiful, then sort the strawberries. When cooking, it greatly decreases in size and you should not forget about it.
To make the jam not look like compote, throw the whole berry into the prepared thick syrup. At the same time, the berries themselves will not have to be cooked for a long time, which will save their size, density and flavor.
1. Strawberries with sugar: a recipe for dry strawberry jam
Ingredients:
Sugar 3.0 kg
Strawberry 3 kg
Powdered Sugar 0.5 kg
Water 1.5 L
Cooking:
Boil water in a saucepan (10 L) with a thick bottom and put sugar in it. Cook the thick syrup. Prepared berries, with dense pulp and without damage, put in boiling syrup and cook for 5-7 minutes. Turn off the fire. Collect the foam. After cooling, boil the jam again. Make sure that the berries do not over-boil or boil. Repeat this operation at least five times.
Place the wire rack (or sieve) on the pan and pour jam on it. Gently, so as not to damage the berries, spread them on the surface of the lattice with a thin layer and let the syrup drain. If the house has a convection oven, then you can use its fan to speed up the drying of berries. In this case, return the drained syrup to the pan, boil it and cork it in bottles with dark glass, having previously sterilized them. This syrup can be used to make desserts in the winter.
Sprinkle the dried berries with powder and place in a dry, tightly closed container. You can store this jam for up to a year, in a dry and dark place.
1. Strawberries with sugar: French jam recipe
Ingredients:
Fresh strawberries 2.0 kg
Lemons 400 g
Sugar 1.5 kg
Cooking:
Sort the berries: medium or large berries of the same size, without signs of damage, are suitable for jam. Strawberries should be tight, not overripe. Wash and dry the berries.
If the berries are not too sweet, then the amount of sugar for jam should be increased. Put berries in a clean and dry enameled dish, pouring each layer with sugar. Leave them in a cool place to wait for the juice to discharge.
Remove the zest from the lemons and squeeze the juice. Add them to the highlighted strawberry juice. Put the pot on low heat and cook for five minutes from the moment of boiling. Let the jam cool a little and drain the syrup into another bowl and cook it until “thin string”. Transfer the berries to the syrup again and boil for another 5 minutes.
For winter storage, put the hot jam in heated sterile and dry jars. Close tightly with sterile caps. Do not flip. Cover with warm material and, after naturally cooling at room temperature, transfer to a dark and cool place.
2. Strawberries with sugar: a quick jam recipe
Ingredients:
Berries 1.0 kg
Strawberry 0.7 kg
Agar 20 g
Sugar 1.7 kg
Cooking:
If you have already prepared dry or French jam, which is preferably cooked from selected, large berries, then it's time to process the remaining, small strawberries. Especially in combination with smaller and fragrant strawberries, garden berries will be more expressive in taste.
After going through the strawberries, wash it and let it drain out, spreading a thin layer on a wire rack or linen napkin. Treat strawberries in the same way, but lay them separately for now.
Crush strawberries with a wooden pestle in an enameled or stainless bowl to let the juice flow. Stir the berry with sugar and set on low heat. Make sure that it does not burn and bring to a boil. Remove the foam and add whole and dense strawberries. Dissolve agar in boiling water (50-100 ml) and pour into a bowl of jam. Remove the jam from the stove after 10 minutes and pack in hot and dry sterile jars. Seal immediately and cover with a blanket.
This jam can be stored at room temperature until a new crop. It has a thick consistency and is very useful for making cakes or pies. In addition, it has a very rich and natural taste and aroma of fresh berries.
3. Strawberries with sugar: a recipe for jam on the fire.
Ingredients:
Berries of technical ripeness (dense),
slightly overripe strawberries
sugar:
all components in equal parts
Cooking:
Nothing complicated in cooking technology! The main thing here is the ability to make a fire.
Any jam cooked at the stake has a special smell and taste. This method of harvesting strawberries for the winter is ideal for summer residents, since in urban conditions there is no question of making a fire.
Ideal material for a fire - logs of fruit trees: cherries, pears, plums, apple trees. You need to wait until the logs burn out and enough heat is collected to maintain the temperature for 1.5-2 hours. Prepare a large basin with water, in which you will need to quickly cool 2-3 times, taken from a fire, a cauldron with jam.
If you want to give some special aroma, besides a slight smell, the haze in strawberries with sugar, the recipe is this: prepare citrus peels, mint or lemon balm grass - choose what you like, and throw into a fire under a cauldron with strawberries.
Strawberries need, as usual, to sort out, remove the stalks and damaged berries. Choose large, whole and not overripe fruits. It is better if they fall into the cauldron directly from the country garden.
What to do with a small and slightly crushed berry? Wipe it through a sieve, and then boil the syrup from the prepared juice. Pour juice into a cauldron, bring to a boil and dissolve sugar in it. Cook the syrup for about 20 minutes, until thickened. Then put the whole berries, let them boil in syrup and dip the cauldron into a bowl of cold water. To cool the jam quickly and you can continue cooking, mix it gently with a wooden spatula. The berries in the syrup must remain intact. After cooling, transfer the cauldron to the fire again and bring the jam to a boil. At this moment, you can add fragrant herbs to the fire. Repeat this procedure twice and immediately pour the hot strawberries in strawberry syrup into pre-prepared jars. When they cool, transfer to the basement. It can also be stored on shelves indoors, at room temperature. Only banks should be tightly corked.
4. Strawberries in sugar: a recipe for dry freezing
Ingredients:
Strawberry 500 g
Icing sugar 200 g
Cooking:
You will need containers with a vacuum lid. They can be replaced with similar packages. Vacuum packaging by itself allows you to store food for a long time without freezing. When freezing strawberries in a vacuum, its shelf life is significantly increased. At the same time, not only its appearance is preserved, but also its valuable vitamin composition.
Wash and dry selected berries to remove water. Separate the stalks. Lay strawberries on a wide and flat dish or tray. Transfer the prepared berries to the freezer and let them stand at -12Ϲ until fully hardened. It is not worthwhile to lower the temperature of freezing and increase the length of time for freezing berries in open form: remember the preservation of vitamins.
Then pour the powder into a tight vacuum bag, transfer the frozen berries into it and quickly return the strawberries to the shelf in the freezer. You can not add powder. But when defrosting berries, it will absorb the juice on the surface of the berries, help maintain their shape. It’s enough to hold such a strawberry in the microwave for a minute in the winter - and the dessert is ready!
Strawberries with Sugar - Tips and Tricks
- In vacuum bags, you can keep fresh strawberries, grated with sugar, in the freezer until a new crop.
- Citric acid, crystalline powder or natural juice is not added to strawberry jam in order to make the berry more acidic. Acid helps maintain berry density. But at the same time, the sugar content in the jam must also be increased in order to regulate the taste.
- When cooking jam from berries, juice is secreted, which automatically reduces them in volume, increases the content of liquid syrup. To achieve the desired density, you can boil the syrup, but at the same time the natural taste of berries and vitamins is noticeably lost. By adding pectin or agar to the jam, you can minimize the cooking process while preserving a significant part of the vitamins, the taste of berry jam will be close to natural, and the consistency, depending on the amount of added natural thickener, can be dense and even like marmalade. This quality of strawberry jam significantly expands the possibilities of using strawberries with sugar. The recipe for this jam is indispensable for lovers of homemade pastries, because agar and pectin are additives that, when reheated, do not lose their main properties that contribute to gelation.
