Currant is the only plant, absolutely all parts of which are used either as medicinal raw materials or have unique taste characteristics.
Freezing blackcurrants allows you to artificially prolong summer and enjoy its tart flavor to the fullest. sweet and sour taste in any season, completely preserving consumer properties, vitamins and unique fresh aroma. The pulp is widely used to prepare original berry sauces, removing the tough skin, and as natural dye in the confectionery industry.
The berries should be well dried and frozen, arranged in one layer.
Compound
- 500 g black currants
Freezing black currants
1. Immediately after picking or purchasing, wash black currant berries in cold water and remove the long tails from them. If the tails are short, then they can be left on the berries - after defrosting and cooking they will not be felt in the dishes. Then we’ll pour the berries onto a paper towel or napkins and gently roll them over them, but we’ll do it as lightly as possible. We only need to blot the moisture and not squeeze the juice out of the berries.
2. Place the dried berries into a clean, dry container with a hermetically sealed lid or into a freezer bag. We will cork them or tie them up and place them in freezer for 2 hours. If you plan to move the container with berries or pour them frozen, you can do this after 2 hours from the start of freezing. If you plan to store the berries in the same form, then simply leave them in the freezer, taking them out as you use them.
The shelf life of such freezing is about 1 year, but remember that it is not recommended to store berries next to bell pepper, garlic seasonings, onions, etc., so that they do not take on the pungent aroma of other products.
Note to the hostess
1. If you roll frozen berries in flour so that each one appears as if in a cocoon, they can be carefully mixed into a biscuit or thin shortbread dough. They will soften during baking, but will not spread, and the flour shell will dissolve. On top open pies They are placed without breading, but they also do not require thawing, so that during the heat treatment period more juice remains inside and the shape is preserved.
2. Plastic containers are generally suitable as containers for freezing fruit supplies, but people are looking for replacements for good reasons: these boxes take up significant space in the freezer, and some of them burst either from being in the cold or after being taken out transferred to heat. An alternative to plastic boxes is wrapping paper. It is easy to make bags or bundles of the desired size from it. The following varieties are attractive in this regard: tea parchment (it does not allow foreign odors to pass through from outside) and paraffin parchment, its advantage is the highest resistance to humidity. If suddenly the refrigerator begins to leak in the absence of the owners due to a power outage, such a wrapper will protect the currants for a long time from the water formed in the chamber.
What preparations do you know? black currant for future use? Jam and jam are sweet and a lot of vitamins disappear. Whole frozen fruits take up a lot of space. Berry puree - already ready dessert, taking up little space. Step by step recipe with photo. Video recipe.
In summer there is no shortage of fresh fruit and berries. However, in winter you want something refreshing, vitamin-rich and tasty. To do this, many housewives prepare gifts of nature for the winter. From variety of options preparations, freezing is especially popular today. This is the fastest and easiest way to preserve all vitamins and natural taste products. Most often, berries are frozen whole, which have been washed, dried, packaged in bags and placed in the freezer to freeze. The option is undoubtedly good, but there is more delicious recipes blanks For example, preparing frozen blackcurrant puree with sugar. If you like experiments, then pay attention to this recipe. Although adding sugar is not necessary here. The puree can also be frozen on its own.
This preparation for the winter will come in handy more than once during the cold season. If you need to come up with delicious dessert or quick breakfast, then just add berry puree into cottage cheese or oatmeal, pour over pancakes and pancakes. It can also be used for filling pies and buns, brewing tea, making jam, jelly, compote and jelly, preparing delicious and fragrant desserts. In addition, the undoubted advantage of this method is its cost-effectiveness. Puree frozen berries in briquettes and cubes take up less space in the freezer than whole fruits.
- Calorie content per 100 g - 61 kcal.
- Number of servings - 600 g
- Cooking time - 20 minutes of active work, plus 3-4 hours for freezing
Ingredients:
- Blackcurrant - 500 g
- Sugar - 100 g or to taste
Step-by-step preparation of frozen blackcurrant puree with sugar, recipe with photo:
1. Place blackcurrants in a sieve and rinse under running water.
2. Place the berries on a cotton towel and leave until completely dry.
3. Tear off the tails with sepals from the fruits and place in a deep bowl.
4. Grind the berries with a blender or grind through a meat grinder. Add sugar and mix well.
5. Place the puree in a convenient container, such as an ice tray, but it’s most convenient to pack them in Silicone forms, it is convenient to remove the workpiece from them. When freezing berries, keep in mind that re-freezing they are not subject to this, so pack them in portions that you use at a time.
6. Place the berry puree in the freezer, turning on “deep” freezing. The faster they are frozen, the more vitamins they retain and the longer they can be stored. Leave them to freeze at -23°C.
Firstly, when freezing, you need to take into account the fact that thawed berries should be immediately ready for consumption. Because it is not possible to prepare them after defrosting. That is, the berries must be clean - well washed and without various foreign parts such as leaves and twigs.
Therefore, to begin with, we sort through all the berries, remove the branches, clear them of leaves and throw away the bad specimens.
Then transfer the currants to a colander and rinse under running water. cold water. Don't turn the water on too high - no berry likes that. We carefully, carefully, but quickly wash our harvest.
We put the currants on a paper napkin so that the berries dry, because the liquid on them will turn into unnecessary ice, and besides, when defrosting, wet berries can release juice, but we don’t want that.
You can additionally dry the currants with a paper towel.
We transfer more or less dry berries into a plastic bag and weigh them. That is, I generally recommend filling the bags in portions of exactly 400 or 500 grams, so that later they will be more convenient to process.
If you wanted compote, you took out one package that already contained required quantity berries, defrosted, boiled. If you wanted a pie, you again took out a bag with the required amount of berries, defrosted it, and baked the pie.
Frozen berries, if there are droplets of water left on them, will stick together in the freezer and will be difficult to separate - and therefore I again recommend freezing them in small packages. Here I have leftover berries, so I didn’t get an exact number. I put them in a bag, weighed them and signed them.
Yes, the berries need to be signed. I always label the items I'm freezing so I can remember what vintage they are from. After all, this also happens - berries are forgotten in the freezer, and the date of their “production” always reminds of the expiration date.
I also label the variety of berries; this is especially useful for black currants, which in frozen form are very similar in appearance to shadberry or blueberries.
Having signed the berries, we put the piece of paper in a bag in a visible place and twist it into a knot. Place the bag of berries in the freezer.
Well, that's all - wait a little, and when the chilly autumn weather arrives or the winter frosts hit, we will be left with something reminiscent of summer. Something that can be defrosted and cooked or baked at any time, something that with its aroma, evoking memories of warm summer days, a village or a dacha, will always warm you up on a rainy day.
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Summer culinary joys 29.07.2018
Dear readers, today we meet the second article that participates in the competition, which is running on the blog until September 1, 2018. The prizes are great, the conditions are very simple. Hurry up and take part.
Olga Shevtsova is with us, who sent the second competition entry. Olga’s article participates in the nomination “Frozen mushrooms, berries, vegetables, fruits and herbs.” I give the floor to Olga.
Good afternoon to all readers of Irina’s blog. My name is Olga Shevtsova. Me and my family - husband Bogdan, daughter Masha and son Dima from the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk. Our city is small, but industrial: 3 largest machine-building plants. Of course, this is not good for the environment at all, so add problems to yourself and buy different store-bought semi-finished products not in our rules. Our task is to maintain your health! Therefore, we prepare everything at home, including storing vitamin reserves for the winter.
Our parents have a dacha where they grow various fruits and vegetables and give it to us. This is how we picked a bucket of blackcurrants from our dacha.
From it we promised to prepare many different healthy dishes. We promised - we'll prepare it! But today we have a story about how we different berries Freeze in a regular freezer, simple and easy. But everyone has their own tricks. So we will show ours.
We freeze all the berries we manage to collect for the winter: raspberries and strawberries, cherries and currants, sometimes even apricots. We also put vegetables in the freezer, but we’ll talk about them another time. Let’s show the whole process using the example of freezing blackcurrants.
How to freeze blackcurrants for the winter without sugar
Wash the currants and leave them so that the water and berries dry well. Sometimes it’s enough to use a colander, and sometimes I dry it on a towel.
Sometimes it is not important for us that each frozen berry remains intact and is well separated from each other. For example, if the berries are used in compote. But more often it is fundamentally important.
Here plastic trays come to our aid (yes, we really like to use them for the second time, and the tenth, and sometimes even for other purposes). So, we place our berries on these trays in 1-2 layers.
In the meantime, prepare the glasses. You need to take plastic cups, of course. (for example, after dairy products). The main thing is that they have a lid. If the lid is transparent - just perfect option. But white will also work.
We have 350 gram cups. But you can take any that you have on hand, or which are convenient to place in the freezer. Can also be used plastic containers But we have glasses - we don’t like to throw away things that can be used many times.
We wash and dry glasses and lids. It’s also better to dry them just in the air for a whole day. But you will be sure that all the moisture has evaporated safely.
Now it’s time to take out our currants and put them in a glass. There are no problems - the berries are perfectly separated from the tray and from each other. They just poured it in, closed the lid and put it in the freezer.
How we froze other berries for the winter
We froze strawberries in the same way. True, it is large and does not fit in a glass. Therefore, we simply pour it into a plastic bag. In small portions, so that later you don’t have to return the berries to the freezer again. Although it’s difficult to guess exactly how much you’ll need, so I take it out and quickly select the right amount. Since the berries separate well, it doesn’t take much time. And we put them back in the freezer.
And in the glasses we also have raspberries and cherries. True, here we skipped the stage of freezing on the tray and immediately put it in a glass. We will use them later in jelly.
I froze the cherries without pits. In this case, I crush the berries a little so that more can fit. After all, the freezer is not that big. Thanks to the transparent lids in the freezer, you can quickly find the glass you need; I remove the berries with a fork. I just break off pieces as needed and put the glass back until next time.
I also sometimes freeze apricot berries. Also on trays. I remove the pit and cut each half into 2-3 pieces. Then it is convenient to use in dumplings and pies. But that’s if there’s a good year. Sometimes there are only a couple of glasses in the freezer for the winter, and sometimes there is half a freezer. And everything is eaten with pleasure by spring, and often much earlier!
I think the freezing method is the most successful - simple and fast. The berries retain most of their flavor and color, and not everyone likes excess sugar (which is inevitable when canning).
Until new meetings and recipes!
Sincerely, Olga Shevtsova, Kramatorsk.
I thank Olya for the recipe. I also invite you to read her first competition work. For the understanding of all readers, I will write a nuance: I kept the style of the competition work, correcting only the errors in the article as best I could.
Dear readers, support our active contestant with your feedback in the comments. And send your works. Find out how you can win chic tableware, edible spoons, health kits, great cookbooks and healthy eating you can by clicking on the button below.
Blog competition Summer culinary joys
And for the soul we will listen today Chopin. Waltz Op 64. No 2 . Performed by Valentina Lisitsa.
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What could be more pleasant and healthier than enjoying fresh berries in the winter cold? It’s clear that any self-respecting supermarket sells all kinds of fresh berries and fruits all year round, regardless of the season. However, even if we do not take into account their “unnatural” growing conditions with the use of various kinds of drugs, and the complete lack of any benefit from them for the body, their taste does not even remotely resemble the taste of natural berries grown in season on the ground. Such dummy berries can only be used as decorations for winter desserts, nothing more.
It’s a matter of taking out the washed, dried, and, possibly, picked berries from the freezer with your own hands! Healthy, tasty and unusual! Children especially love frozen berries. And it is not necessary to completely defrost the fruit for consumption; let the child harden the neck - this is one of the aspects.
It is known that in frozen berries Almost everything is saved useful material fresh berries(as well as fruits and vegetables). There are much more vitamins and minerals in frozen berries, as well as fruits and vegetables (up to 90%) than in canned food or pickles.
Ideally, for freezing you need to take medium-sized berries that are not overripe. They need to be washed, cleaned and dried. Then spread on a tray in a single layer and freeze for quick freezing. After this, pour the berries into a container or tight plastic bag and place in the freezer for storage.
However, we do not always have ideal berries in stock. If the berries are slightly overripe or small, it’s not a problem. You can’t feed guests with such a product, but the beneficial substances are still there. The body doesn't care how much beautiful berries he uses, the main thing is that all the usefulness is preserved in them.
If the berries are a little soft, place them in portion molds(boxes) lined with polyethylene on the inside and place in the freezer as is. Before eating, place the berries on a plate and leave to thaw.
As an option, you can make a ready-made dessert for the winter: beat strawberries (and any other berries) with sugar in a blender, spread over portion forms and freeze.
How to freeze raspberries
Place ripe berries in small container boxes lined with plastic wrap inside. Cover tightly and place in the freezer. You can sprinkle the berries with sugar in layers and let them stand until they release the juice, and then in this form freeze raspberries.
If the berries are just right - large, strong and dry - you can freeze them like strawberries, first freezing them on a plate in one layer, and then pouring them into a storage container. You will enjoy whole raspberries in winter!
How to freeze currants (black, red, white)
Black currants must be washed, dried, and the stalks separated. Carefully separate the red and white ones from the bunches. Dry and clean currants can be laid out on a dish in one layer, like strawberries. But since currants are a dense berry, they can be poured directly into bags or containers and frozen, skipping the stage of laying them out on a plate.
Interestingly, after defrosting, blackcurrants are no different from fresh ones!
How to freeze cherries
Wash and dry the cherries. If you plan to cook compote from them, you can freeze cherries with bones. If you bake pies or make dumplings, it is better to remove the seeds. For further preparation, the berries can simply be portioned into bags and frozen. Place the berries that you are going to eat whole in one layer, flash freeze them, and then pour them into containers or bags for further storage.
Freeze berries much easier, faster and more economical than making compotes and jams from them, and in winter you will delight yourself and your family with a fragrant summer dessert!
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