How to prepare hawthorn for the winter: recipes

Hawthorn berries are valued for excellent taste and are well known for their healing properties.

But in order for them to retain their taste and benefit the body, you need to know how to properly collect and preserve hawthorn for the winter.

Rules for the collection and preparation of berries for storage

The harvest of this unique plant begins at the end of September, when the fruits begin to ripen, and ends with the first frost. The weather for harvesting berries should be sunny and dry. They are torn down during the day, when the dew leaves, and are immediately sorted out, discarding rotten or spoiled birds. You need to tear not individual berries, but completely the shields.

Immediately after harvesting, the berries are sorted, discarded, all unripe and defective, then the stalks are removed.And the last stage - carefully wash the selected berries and let them dry. Now your harvest is ready for further processing.

Frost

In a frozen form, this healing berry can be stored for up to 1 year, and at the same time it keeps the lion's share of beneficial substances for the body. Pre-prepared fruit laid in the freezer in two ways:

1. A tray is placed on the bottom or lined with food film, the hawthorn is poured in one layer, the film can be put on top and another layer can be poured. After freezing it is laid out in bags and stored in the freezer.
2. You can immediately arrange the fruits in special zippered bags for freezing, put them in the chamber and set the “quick freeze” mode.

How to dry the fruits of a plant

For drying the berries of this wonderful plant are suitable in several ways:

• in a special dryer at a temperature not exceeding 60 ° C, since at a higher temperature valuable substances are destroyed;
• in an electric or gas oven with the door ajar;
• in the sun, placing the fruits in one layer on a linen cloth and covering them with gauze from flies, periodically turning over and selecting the spoiled ones;
• on batteries in the apartment - berries are hung in fabric bags or poured into cardboard boxes and placed on top.

Properly dried fruits should smell good, be dark maroon, hard and shriveled. You can store them for no more than two years in linen bags, paper bags, jars with a tight lid. The storage areas should be dry and dark, and also need good ventilation.

Harvesting hawthorn, ground with sugar

Another simple recipe for hawthorn harvesting for the winter is to grind it with sugar. They do it this way: the bones are removed, the flesh is kept in boiling water or in a double boiler for 2-3 minutes, then ground over a sieve or twisted in a meat grinder. Sugar is added to the resulting puree at the rate of 2.5 cups per 1 kg of berries, this mixture is heated to 80 ° C to melt the sugar, and laid out in sterile jars. Filled jars are pasteurized for 20-30 minutes in boiling water and rolled up.

Preserves, jams, mashed potatoes

What hawthorn we love for our hostesses is the accessibility, yield and variety of recipes made from it.

• Jam

It can be made raw from hawthorn, which will preserve the beneficial properties of the berries, or it can be made with the help of heat treatment, then it will be stored longer. For the preparation of raw jam from hawthorn, mashed seedless in any convenient way, add sugar and acid at the rate of 700 g of sugar and 2 tsp. acids per kilogram of fruit, mixed, laid out in sterilized jars, poured on top of a layer of sugar as thick as a finger. In order for the jam not to ferment and not to "bloom," you can put a circle of paper on top, after having moistened it in alcohol. Next, close the lid tightly and put in storage in a cold place. Hot jam can be prepared as follows: a kilogram of prepared flesh without stones is poured 600 g of granulated sugar and wait for 2-3 hours until the mass starts up juice. Cooked jam for three days - in the first two days they boil in the evening for 5 minutes and set aside until the morning, on the third day they are allowed to boil for 2 minutes and rolled into sterile jars.

• Jam

This type of preparation is perfect as a filling for pies. The following components are necessary for its preparation: 2 kg of hawthorn, 1 kg of 600 g of sugar, 800 ml of filtered water, 50 ml of lemon juice.Peeled berries are placed in a saucepan, pour water and boil over low heat until the berries are soft. Then the water is poured into a separate container, and the fruit fray through a sieve. In the resulting puree add sugar and previously drained water, boil until thick and stirring. At the end pour lemon juice. Jars of jam are sterilized for 5 minutes and rolled up.

• Mashed potatoes

To prepare for the winter tasty and healthy mashed potatoes, you need to boil the pitted pulp in water until soft, wait until it cools and pass through a sieve.

Then add sugar at the rate of 300 g per 2 kg of berries and immediately cork.

Paste

Another useful delicacy, which is obtained from the berries of the fruit and can replace sweets, is the marshmallow. Peeled and softened in boiling water to twist the fruit in a meat grinder, add a little honey, melt it beforehand in a water bath.

Next, put this mixture on a baking sheet moistened with cold water, level and put in a warm oven. When the pastille dries, cut it into pieces and store in a glass container.

How to prepare juice

Among the many different hawthorn drinks the most simple to prepare are compotes and juices.

Despite the fact that the fruit itself is not juicy, to prepare the juice from it is not a problem. For 2 kg of pulp without stones, take 200 g of sugar and 4 liters of water. The pulp is boiled until soft and rubbed through a sieve, then sugar and the remaining water are poured, brought to a boil and poured into jars, which are rolled up and wrapped.

By the way, according to a similar recipe, hawthorn is harvested and compote, only sugar is needed twice as much.

Dried hawthorn for the winter

The process of making dried hawthorn is similar to the process of drying the berries, only they are soaked for 10-12 hours in a saturated sugar syrup, then removed, allowed to drain and dried in any available way.

Other unusual blanks: sweets, marmalade and other sweets.

You can make tasty and fragrant candies, thick beautiful marmalade and many other goodies from the berries of the year.

• Marmalade is prepared as follows: the bones are extracted from the berries, poured with water and boiled until soft. Then the mass is ground, sugar is added there, and all this is cooked over low heat to the desired density with constant stirring. Ingredients: for 2 kg of berries take 2 kg of sugar and 1.2 liters of water.
• On the basis of this marmalade can make sweets. To do this, in the ready, non-hot marmalade add starch in the amount of 100 g per 1 kg of weight, mix everything well. This mass is spread in a thin layer (1.5-2 cm) on a wooden platform and, after cutting into cubes, is left to dry in a well-ventilated room for 2-3 days.

• Another interesting delicacy of hawthorn fruit is candied fruit. In order to prepare them, take 2 kg of seedless berries, 2.4 kg of sugar, 0.6 l of purified water and 4 g of citric acid. They make syrup out of water and sugar, put berries in it and leave it for the night. In the morning, put on the fire and boil for 15 minutes, at the end adding acid. In the evening, cook a third time until soft. Next, the fruits are removed, allowed to drain to the syrup, laid out on a tray, sprinkled with fine sugar and dried for several days.

Having prepared hawthorn in the fall, you will be able to replenish the supply of missing nutrients in the winter months and to please your household with delicacies from this amazing berry, given to us by nature. So do not regret spending a few autumn days for the harvesting and processing of these beautiful fruits - they are worth it.