Colorful Cucumber Salad Pasteurized /Kolorowa Sałatka z Ogórków na Zimę
Homemade cucumber salad is a great idea to pasteurize for the winter and preserve that summer taste. The recipe is incredibly simple, and the salad itself is very colorful, crunchy and delicious.
Ingredients
Cucumber Salad
- 2 kg small cucumbers (gruntowe)
- 1 large red bell pepper
- 150 grams rainbow carrots julienne cut
- 150 grams carrots julienne cut
- 250 grams yellow onion
- 250 grams red onion
- 3 tablespoons salt
- 1 bunch fresh parsley leaves
Brine
- 1 liter water
- 250 ml's distilled white vinegar 10% acidity
- 90 grams granulated white sugar
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 tablespoon mustard seed
- 1 teaspoon colander (optional)
- 8 grains whole allspice
- 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
Instructions
- Wash all vegetables thoroughly under cold running water. Peel the cucumbers, or leave the skins on if not too thick. I cut mine to look like stripes. Cut the cucumbers into slices about 5 mm thick. Peel the carrots thoroughly and julienne cut them or other shape as you prefer. Peel both onions and cut them into any shape, e.g. into rings no thicker than 5 mm. Remove the seeds from the bell peppers and cut them into shorter strips up to 7 mm wide. Cut up fresh parsley leaves. Place all the chopped vegetables in one very large bowl and then add salt. (I used rock salt). Mix everything together very thoroughly. You may have to use your hands. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Place the bowl with the chopped vegetables and salt in a cooler place for about two to three hours.
- After about two to three hours, the vegetables will soften and release a lot of juice. Mix everything in the bowl one last time and then pour out all the salty juice out. You can even slightly squeeze the vegetables out of it. Pour out the salty water we do not use it for the recipe.
- Prepare your jars. I used 0.9 liter jars and had 5 full jars. The jars should be perfectly clean and preferably scalded with boiling water. Same with the lids. Use only undamaged jars and lids.
- Place the vegetables loosely and evenly into each jar. Do not try to stuff the vegetables very tightly into the jar, so that the liquid poured in soon can fill the spaces between the vegetables and cover them completely.
- Prepare the brine. Pour water into the pot. Place in the granulated sugar, vinegar, bay leaves, mustard seed, colander, black peppercorns, whole allspice. Simmer the brine for about 5 minutes until the water absorbs most of the flavors. Remove from heat.
- Stir the brine and pour immediately into jars. Pour enough brine to completely fill the spaces between the vegetable fragments. However, leave 1 cm of free space from the edge. Try to pour the spices equally, and add the bay leaves only to three jars. Don't rush to close the jars as there may be a lot of air bubbles between the vegetables. To get rid of them, I recommend carefully rocking the jars. After removing the air from the jars, you will probably need to add a little more liquid to cover the protruding vegetables. Only then can the jars be tightly closed
- Before you can store the cucumber salad for the winter, it must be pasteurized. Place a cotton cloth at the bottom of a wide pot. Place the jars next to each other, but so that they do not touch each other. Pour water up to 3/4 of the height of the jars. Bring the water to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and pasteurize the jars for about 10 minutes. If hot brine was used, place the jars in a pot with already hot water.
- Immediately after pasteurization, you can turn the jars upside down. This way you can check whether the jars are tightly closed. Additionally, it may help with the lids that did not suck during pasteurization. After they cool off you can turn the jars over and ,place the jars in a cool, shaded room without moisture (a cool storage room or basement). Enjoy! SMACZNEGO as always!
- TIP : Jars of cucumber salad can also be pasteurized in the oven. If the vegetables were poured with hot brine, place the well-closed jars in an oven preheated to 110 degrees C or 230 degrees F. Pasteurize the jars for about 20 minutes. When pressed with a finger, the lid should be concaved - it should not bounce back when pressed. If the vegetable salad was poured with cooled brine, place it in a cold oven and then start preheating the oven to 110 degrees C or 230 degrees F. You count the pasteurization time from the time the oven heats up and it takes about 10 minutes.
Notes
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