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Canning is a great way to preserve vegetables for the winter. If you grow them yourself, then vegetable preparations will cost very little. But even if you have to buy food for canning, the savings will still be noticeable, since at the height of the vegetable season all the necessary ingredients are quite inexpensive.
Every family has its own food preferences. Therefore, the range of canned vegetables prepared for the winter is individual in each home. But there are recipes that almost every housewife uses. Zucchini is especially good in this regard. The vegetable has a neutral taste, which allows you to prepare a wide variety of dishes from it, from desserts to savory snacks.
One of them - mother-in-law's tongue with tomato paste. In different variations, these canned foods are present on the table in every home in winter. This vegetable salad is also good because it can be prepared even in late autumn, since fully mature zucchini is suitable for it, and tomatoes, which are quite expensive at this time, are replaced by tomato paste.
This salad is as spicy as a mother-in-law's tongue. But each housewife selects the degree of spiciness according to her own taste.For those who like it “hot,” you can add more hot pepper and garlic, and if someone prefers a neutral taste, you can take very little of these hot ingredients, just so that the canned food does not spoil in winter. They also make preparations with the same name from eggplants.
There are many options for preparing these canned foods. Changing the proportions and composition of ingredients affects the taste of the finished product. In order to find the very recipe that will become your favorite for many years, you will first have to try several different options.
Very sharp mother-in-law's tongue
This recipe is for lovers of “fiery” food, it has a lot of everything - garlic, hot pepper, tomato paste. The following products will be needed for canning:
- zucchini – 2 kg;
- sweet feather – 300 g;
- medium-sized garlic - 3 heads;
- hot pepper – 2 pods;
- tomato paste – 400 g;
- sugar – 2/3 cup;
- refined vegetable oil – 2/3 cup;
- salt – 1.5 tablespoons;
- vinegar 9% - 4 tablespoons.
Mix tomato paste and water. We do this in a saucepan in which the mother-in-law's tongue will be cooked. We divide the garlic into cloves, peel it, cut off the top of the hot pepper, cut the peppers in half, completely remove the seeds, as well as the partitions to which they are attached. Prepare sweet peppers in the same way.
We pass all the peppers and garlic through a meat grinder and place them in a saucepan. It's the turn of the zucchini. They need to be washed well, if necessary, remove the skin and trim off the hard ends.
Young fruits are easier to peel and cook faster.But ripe vegetables have a more pronounced taste.
The traditional shape for zucchini in this preparation is elongated pieces that look like tongues. But such cutting takes a lot of time. If you don’t want to spend it irrationally, and the aesthetic component is not important, you can cut the zucchini into pieces of any shape. The main condition is that they must be large enough, but such that it is convenient to put them in a jar in finished form.
Season our sauce with salt, add sugar and vinegar, vegetable oil, mix and bring to a boil. Place the zucchini into the boiling sauce. If they do not fit completely into the pan, you can divide them into batches and place them one by one, waiting for the previous part of the vegetables to settle a little.
Cook the product for no more than 20 minutes after boiling.
Canning jars must be prepared in advance. They must be dry sterilized. It is best to do this in an oven heated to a temperature of about 150 degrees. For liter and half liter bottles, a holding time of 15 minutes is required.
We pack the prepared salad into jars, seal it tightly and turn it over. When they have cooled down, we put the canned food in the basement or any other cool place where they will be stored.
The jars are turned over to check for leaks.
Mother-in-law's tongue with mustard
Here, in addition to the usual spicy ingredients, there is mustard, which adds even more spiciness to the dish.It is designed for those who are accustomed to spicy dishes and cannot imagine a single meal without them.
To prepare winter preparations you will need:
- zucchini ready for cutting – 3 kg;
- tomato juice – 1.4 l;
- tomato paste – 2 tablespoons;
- bell pepper – 3 pcs.;
- hot pepper – 3 pcs.;
- peeled garlic cloves – 100 g;
- prepared mustard - 1 tablespoon;
- sugar – 1 glass;
- salt – 3 tablespoons;
- vinegar 9% - 4 tablespoons.
Wash the vegetables. We cut the zucchini in half horizontally, and then into slices 1.5 cm thick and 10 cm long.
Mix the tomato ingredients in a saucepan, add salt, add sugar, pour out vinegar, add vegetable oil, add mustard. Chop the garlic. We do the same with peppers, removing the seeds from them. Put everything in the sauce. Bring it to a boil. Add the cooked zucchini and bring the mixture to a boil. Mix carefully, trying not to break the zucchini pieces. Cook the vegetable mixture for about 40 minutes.
Place the zucchini in dry and sterilized jars and fill with sauce up to the shoulders. Immediately roll up and insulate for a day.
For those who love this salad, but do not want or cannot, for health reasons, eat too spicy dishes, there is a gentle option with moderate spiciness.
Mother-in-law's tongue is moderately spicy
It will require:
- zucchini – 2 kg;
- sweet pepper – 500 g;
- hot pepper – 1 piece;
- garlic – 1 head;
- sugar – 250 g;
- salt – 80 g;
- vinegar 9% - 50 ml;
- tomato paste – 250 ml;
- water – 0.5 l;
- optional - allspice, cardamom, cloves.
Tomato paste must be mixed with water. Let the pan heat up.Meanwhile, peel and chop the garlic cloves and both types of pepper.
Add everything to the pan. While the sauce is boiling, wash, peel and cut the zucchini into thin tongue-like slices. Add the remaining ingredients according to the norm. As soon as the sauce boils, add the zucchini. You need to cook the workpiece for half an hour. We package the finished mother-in-law's tongue in dry, sterilized jars.
They need to be rolled up using sterilized lids, turned over to check the tightness and wrapped well. After a day, we transfer the jars to permanent storage in the cold.
In conclusion, another recipe in which there is unexpectedly a lot of tomato paste. This gives the preparation a rich tomato taste. Tomatoes are a healthy vegetable; when cooked, most of their medicinal substances are preserved.
Tomato mother-in-law's tongue
There are also a lot of spicy ingredients in this recipe, so the dish is for spicy lovers.
We will need:
- zucchini – 3 kg;
- hot pepper – 4 pcs.;
- sweet pepper – 5 pcs;
- peeled garlic – 100g;
- 1 glass each of sugar and vegetable oil;
- salt – 4 tbsp. spoons;
- vinegar 9% - 3 tbsp. spoons;
- tomato paste – 900 g;
- water – 1 l.
Mix water and tomato paste. The thick sauce needs to be boiled. Dissolve sugar and salt in it, season with vegetable oil and vinegar. Grind the garlic cloves and peeled peppers using a meat grinder. Place them in a saucepan with sauce.Cut the peeled zucchini into slices or small pieces and place in a thick sauce. Cook the stock for 40 minutes.
Place the zucchini in prepared jars and pour the sauce over them. Immediately seal it tightly. Canned food should be wrapped warmly for 24 hours.
Conclusion
Mother-in-law’s tongue is a universal winter preparation that can be prepared in any way – spicy or not. But no matter what she is, she won’t have to stand for long. This tasty dish, both hot and cold, is eaten first.
