Content
In any housewife's bins, pickled salads usually occupy a large volume throughout the winter. And in the most honorable place among them are dishes made from cabbage, since cabbage is the queen of the garden beds in the autumn and only the lazy do not make preparations from it. Pickled cabbage is also good because, unlike sauerkraut, it cooks very quickly, and it is easy to roll it up, and use ordinary kitchen cabinets for storage if there is not enough space in the refrigerator and there is no cellar. But when unexpected guests arrive or there is another reason to set the table with pickles, you can pull out a jar of pickled cabbage salad from a secluded place and you won’t have to come up with anything else. Or, on the contrary, you can marinate it literally a day or two before the planned celebration and you will be guaranteed the delight of your guests.
Well, it’s especially good as a snack spicy pickled cabbage. It is especially appreciated by the stronger sex and therefore housewives, wanting to please their other halves, demonstrate miracles of ingenuity, coming up with new, interesting and piquant recipes for making cabbage with pepper, garlic or horseradish, or even with all the spicy ingredients at once. This article is dedicated to such recipes.
Simple and quick recipe
Using this recipe, you can prepare any variety of cabbage, and at any time of the year, if you always have a supply of inexpensive fresh cabbage in your cellar or the nearest store. Or you can, after sterilizing the jars with the finished snack, seal it for long-term storage.
According to the recipe, you can pickle a small portion of cabbage, and if you want to make a larger amount, simply double or triple the amount of all the ingredients.
An experienced housewife often prepares the marinade to her taste, sometimes using the most unexpected additives and spices. But on average, the following components are used for marinating:
- 1 liter of water;
- 60 g salt;
- 50 g sugar;
- 125 g table 9% vinegar;
- 125 g sunflower oil;
- 3 pieces of bay leaves;
- 10 black peppercorns.
In order not to waste time, you can already put the water on the fire before working on the vegetables. While it is boiling, peel the carrots and garlic, and separate the two outer leaves of the cabbage, no matter how dirty they are.
It is easiest to grate carrots using a coarse grater; for storing cabbage in small jars, it is best to chop it into strips. Although if you like a different way of cutting cabbage, use that.
Cut the garlic into thin slices - in this form it can share its aroma, and you can additionally enjoy it in the finished marinated dish.
When the water boils, add all the spices, sugar and salt, boil for another 5 minutes over low heat and finally add sunflower oil and vinegar. Remove the marinade from the heat and let it cool.
Now the cabbage, carrots and garlic should be mixed well together. You can do this either directly on the surface of a clean table or in a large deep bowl.
Place the mixture of vegetables and cabbage in a glass jar and pour warm marinade over it.
The dish will be completely marinated within 24 hours and can be stored in this form in the refrigerator for about a week. If you want to prepare pickled cabbage according to this recipe for the winter, then you need to pour the hot marinade over the vegetables, then cover the jars with lids and sterilize in boiling water for 20 minutes if we are talking about liter jars. Then the jars of cabbage are hermetically sealed, wrapped, and after complete cooling, they are stored.
Georgian red cabbage
In this recipe, pickled cabbage is called red due to the use of beets, although nothing prevents you from preparing a similar dish from red cabbage.
To prepare a delicious dish you need to find:
- A head of cabbage weighing about 3 kg;
- Several medium carrots;
- Two small beets;
- Two heads of garlic;
- 2-3 pods of hot pepper.
In the tradition of preparing a dish according to this recipe in Georgia, it is customary to cut a head of cabbage into 4 parts, and then each quarter into another 4 parts. Beets and carrots are cut into thin slices. But in Georgia, spicy cabbage is usually prepared in large quantities, from 10 kg or more. Therefore, for a modest scale, finer cutting of vegetables is suitable.Cabbage can be cut into cubes, then the leaves will take the shape of small squares by themselves, and everything together will look beautiful in jars.
Chop carrots and beets as you prefer. Just keep in mind that both beets and carrots in the marinade turn out so tasty that it’s nice to crunch them in the form of separate pieces, and not cut into shavings.
After peeling and dividing into slices, it is also best to cut the garlic into small slices, without using a crush.
But hot peppers can be cut into thin strips.
Place the cooked vegetables in a separate bowl and mix, and in the meantime you can prepare the marinade. According to the recipe for it, you will need to dissolve 240 g of salt, 270 g of sugar in three liters of water and add peppercorns and bay leaves to your taste. After the marinade has boiled for 5-7 minutes, add 200 g of 6% table vinegar and 100 g of vegetable oil. Leave it to cool and when warm you can pour it over cabbage and other vegetables.
Usually cabbage according to this recipe is prepared for instant consumption, since after a day it will already be marinated and become extremely tasty. Well, if you want to spin cabbage for the winter, then additional sterilization is necessary.
Cabbage rolls with horseradish
Pickled cabbage with the addition of hot peppers is often prepared in the form of rolls, which add additional beauty and originality to the dish.
The main ingredients for this savory snack are as follows:
- A small head of cabbage weighing about 1.5 kg;
- Horseradish rhizomes – 500 grams;
- 2 pods of hot pepper.
The marinade is prepared from two liters of water, to which 200 g of sugar and 60 g of salt are added, as well as a pinch of coriander seeds and mustard. After the water with spices boils and cooks for 6-8 minutes, remove it from the heat and add 300 ml of 9% vinegar.
The rolls themselves are made in the following way:
- Wash the cabbage head and, after removing the outermost leaves, disassemble it leaf by leaf. You don't need the stalk itself.
- Boil water in a wide saucepan and simmer the cabbage leaves in it for 5 minutes.
- Remove the cabbage leaves from the water with a slotted spoon and after they have cooled, cut them into strips 7-8 cm wide.
- Peel the hot pepper from the seed chambers and tails, and the horseradish rhizome from the skin.
- Grind the pepper and horseradish using a meat grinder, first placing a plastic bag over the outlet hole to avoid unnecessary tears.
- Place half a teaspoon of horseradish and hot pepper mixture on each cooked cabbage strip and roll up.
- In the next step, carefully place all the cabbage rolls in a jar and pour the hot marinade over them.
Covering the jars with lids, sterilize in boiling water for 20-30 minutes - liter jars, and 40-45 minutes - three-liter jars.
Cool upside down. Delicious pickled cabbage for the winter ready in jars, and the unusual shape of the preparation will only arouse the additional appetite of your family and guests.
Useful tips for the hostess
It’s never too late to learn something, and even an experienced housewife sometimes learns something new from various recipes and recommendations for them.Well, for beginners it will be even more interesting to get acquainted with the main features of pickling cabbage.
Everyone knows that the basis for marinade, as a rule, is vinegar of varying concentrations. What to do if you find it difficult to tolerate this product? There are even several possible answers to this question. The easiest way is to replace table vinegar with any natural one: apple, wine or rice.
To pickle cabbage, you can use citric acid instead of vinegar or even squeeze the juice from a fresh lemon.
- One tablespoon of 6% table vinegar is equal to two tablespoons of lemon juice obtained from fresh lemon.
- And if you dilute 1 teaspoon of dry lemon powder in 14 tablespoons of water, you will get a substitute for 9% vinegar.
Well, many still remember and use their grandmother’s method - instead of vinegar, they add one aspirin tablet to one liter jar of pickled preparation.
The entire specific taste of a particular pickled preparation is determined, first of all, by the set of spices. The choice here is quite wide - from traditional bay leaves, cloves and peppercorns, to mustard seeds, coriander, cinnamon and even ginger. By combining these spices in different variations, you can not only prepare very tasty cabbage for the winter, but also diversify the number of flavors so that out of 10 jars, not one is similar to the other.
The easiest way to pickle cabbage is in a glass or enamel bowl. Historically, wooden and ceramic dishes were also used for these purposes.But under no circumstances should aluminum or iron containers be used for pickling cabbage.
If you have a little extra marinade left, don’t rush to throw it away. A few days after pickling, the cabbage is able to absorb brine, its level will drop and it will be necessary to add marinade to the preparation so that it is better preserved.
Remember that adding bell pepper and beets can make the finished pickled cabbage taste sweet.
Pickled cabbage not only can, but also needs to be fried in order to make amazingly tasting fillings for pies or dumplings.
If you open a jar of pickled cabbage, it can keep well in the refrigerator for no more than a week. Then it may simply become tasteless.
Any of the above recipes can be varied with additional ingredients in the form of vegetables and berries, as well as seasonings, thereby creating many variations on the theme of spicy pickled cabbage. Experiments will help you gain additional experience in the difficult task of preparing supplies for the winter and learn how to create your own culinary masterpieces.
