In winter, we especially want fresh greens. It is not only useful, but also reminds us with its view of the warm summer days. One of the first spring sorrel makes us happy. But you can make a salad with it or cook a wonderful green borsch in the winter. To do this, you only need to know how to prepare the sorrel correctly, so that this tasty and healthy greens retains a beautiful appearance, and most importantly - taste and vitamins.
In fact, there are enough ways to store sorrel. Each housewife can choose the most suitable for herself - drying, freezing, canning. And we will consider each method of procurement in all details.
However, before harvesting sorrel for the winter, it needs to be taken somewhere. Therefore, we take a suitable container and go to the cottage, garden plot, to the meadow or to the nearest market. We bring tasty greens home and are engaged in its preliminary processing. First, the sorrel must be thoroughly washed under running water, to remove weeds and damaged leaves, if any, that accidentally got into it. This applies to all methods of procurement, without exception. But then the variations already begin.
How to harvest sorrel for the winter, if you do not have time, but have a roomy freezer? Very simple: we take the washed and prepared sorrel, cut it and put it into containers. Special plastic boxes with tight-fitting lids (you can buy them at any store today) or, at worst, ordinary plastic bags will do. You will get many portions of sorrel, from each you can cook, for example, delicious green borsch. Greens before cooking will not even need to be defrosted.
How to freeze sorrel for the winter, figured out, but this method for one reason or another may not be suitable for all housewives. For example, you do not have much space in the freezer. Then you can dry the sorrel and store it on the balcony. For this, finely chopped greens are laid out on paper and dried in a natural way. It is advisable that the sun does not fall on it. And for the sorrel to dry evenly, stir it from time to time.
Now let's talk about how to harvest sorrel for the winter by canning. There may be two options. Thoroughly washed and coarsely chopped sorrel is placed in a pan with boiling water, kept on high heat for several seconds until the greens change color, then we reduce the gas to a minimum, remove the foam with a slotted spoon, and then we take the sorrel and ram it tightly into pre-sterilized jars. Add some liquid from the pan and roll up.
If you do not want to mess around with cans and boil water, we can offer another way: cold salting. Before you prepare a sorrel with salt for the winter, you again need to rinse it, sort it out, cut it as you like, and put it tightly in a jar in layers, pouring salt. Such a sorrel should be stored in a cool dark place. Since greens are quite salty, salt should be added to the dish when cooking with caution.
Happy culinary experiments and tasty winter!