How to pickle cucumbers

Delicious, juicy and crunchy - these cucumbers will be a great addition to the summer table. This is a light dish that you can have a snack with, and, on occasion, have a snack. To pamper yourself with delicious lightly salted cucumbers, you will need a few of the simplest ingredients and just an hour of free time!

How to quickly pickle cucumbers

To make the cucumbers tasty and crispy, you need to know a few rules:

• To make lightly salted cucumbers, you need to carefully select the raw materials. The skin of such cucumbers should be thin and pimpled, and the cucumbers themselves should be small. It is better if cucumbers that have just been picked from the garden are used for pickling. If the vegetable is planned to be lightly salted, then it is very important that they are all of the same size, only in this case they will be completely and qualitatively salted.
• Brine water is a very important ingredient, so it is very good if it is of high quality. Considering this, it will be just great if you manage to use spring water. If this is not possible, you can use filtered or bottled water. You can do the following. Pour the required amount of ordinary water into a saucepan and place a spoon made of silver or copper on the bottom, cover with a lid and let stand for several hours. In this way, the taste of the water can be significantly improved.
• It is better to use glass jars for work, but as practice shows, a naturally enameled pan is much more convenient. It is convenient to put cucumbers in it, and then take them out. In addition to storage containers, you will need a lid for it, or a plate, as well as oppression, for the role of which a container filled with water can fit.
• Before cooking, the cucumbers must be soaked, this is what will make them crispy and elastic. On average, the soaking time is about three to four hours; the vegetable should become elastic and dense to the touch. Remember, even if the cucumbers have just come from the garden, it is still necessary to soak them.
• A little about spices. Each experienced housewife has her own set of spices for all occasions. But if you are just starting your journey to this area, then know that horseradish leaves, currant leaves and, of course, dill are a must for delicious cucumbers. Horseradish, by the way, in addition to the spicy taste, protects the cucumbers from the appearance of mold. Peppers and lavrushka are often added to hot brine. As for salt, it should be the simplest, not sea salt and without iodine. Give preference to coarse crystalline salt, rather than shallow, then the chances of oversalting are reduced. In addition, fine salt can cause the cucumbers to soften. According to the standard, the amount of salt is calculated as follows: per liter of liquid, a pair of large spoons.

So that over time, lightly salted cucumbers do not turn into salted ones, it is better to cook them in small batches. Otherwise, if you do not eat them in a short time, the fermentation process will continue and the vegetables will start to pickle further.

The cooking time for lightly salted cucumbers is determined by the type of brine. So, for example, a hot brine gives ready-made cucumbers in a day, and with a cold one you will have to wait two days.

To cook quick lightly salted cucumbers, you will need:

• a couple of kilograms of cucumbers;
• a small spoonful of granulated sugar;
• coarse salt;
• a bunch of dill;
• a couple of lemons;
• five peas of allspice and twice as many peas of black pepper;

1. The pepper must be crushed along with sugar and a couple of large tablespoons of salt.
2. Remove the zest from the lemons, after washing them, and add it to the sugar and pepper. Squeeze the juice out of the lemon pulp.
3. Rinse and chop the dill.
4. Rinse the cucumbers and soak in water for at least 60 minutes, then cut the tails on each side.
5. Lightly tap each cucumber with the handle of the knife so that they crack a little, but do not fall apart, and then cut it across into several pieces.
6. Cover the cucumbers with a mixture of salt and pepper, add lemon juice and mix well. Add two extra spoons of salt, add chopped greens and let stand for half an hour. Before serving them to the table, the cucumbers should be lightly blotted with a paper towel.

How to pickle cucumbers in a bag

Another option for harvesting "quick" lightly salted cucumbers is to use a bag.

What you need:

• a kilogram of cucumbers;
• greens, shitty or currant leaves (you can do with simple dill);
• three garlic cloves;
• a large spoonful of salt;
• a small spoonful of cumin;
• a clean bag, or a plastic container with a sturdy lid.

1. Rinse the greens and tear them with your hands. Place in a bag.
2. Soak the cucumbers for half an hour (you can skip the soaking, but rinse well), cut off the tails, cut into 4 pieces and put in a bag.
3. Chop the garlic well.
4. Crush the caraway seeds, mix them with the garlic-salted mixture and put everything in a bag.
5. Tie the bag tightly and shake so that everything is well distributed over the cucumbers.
6. Place the bag in a plate and refrigerate for about an hour.

How to pickle cucumbers for the winter

The above recipes will come in handy in the summer, when fresh cucumbers are always freely available. And in order to please yourself and loved ones with summer vegetables in the winter, they can be preserved.

There are a lot of options for pickling cucumbers in the winter, so you can use several different options, and then choose what you like best.

To pickle cucumbers for the winter you will need:

• about four kilograms of small cucumbers;
• five liters of brine (in this case, 1.5 large tablespoons of salt are taken per liter of water);
• about five pods of hot pepper;
• at your discretion, but not necessarily, you can take horseradish root;
• greens, cherry and currant leaves.

1. Wash cucumbers thoroughly and cover them with water for several hours, but not longer than overnight.
2. Peel and chop the horseradish root. Chop hot pepper.
3. Put several pieces of horseradish and pepper, cherry and currant leaves torn into pieces in a large saucepan. Place some cucumbers in the next layer. Then the layers continue to alternate, it should be the leaves as the last layer.
4. Stir the salt in 5 liters of water until it is completely dissolved. And pour the cucumbers with the prepared brine so that they are completely covered.
5. Place the cucumbers under pressure to prevent the vegetables from floating.
6. Thus, the cucumbers are salted for two to five days. The term depends on the air temperature. If the house is hot, then the very minimum is enough; when it is cool, it is better to hold it longer. White bloom may form on the brine surface - don't worry, this is not mold at all, but lactic acid bacteria.
7. After this time, the pickle from the cucumbers must be drained into a separate container. The herbal spices can be thrown away and will no longer be required. Rinse the cucumbers.
8. Place clean cucumbers in clean glass jars.
9. The drained and drained brine must be boiled, then poured into a jar of cucumbers to the very top and covered with lids, preferably pre-boiled. Let stand for 10 minutes.
10. Pour the brine back into the pan and boil again (at this time, cover the cucumbers in the jar with lids). Pour the boiled brine back into the jar so that it overflows slightly over the edges. In order not to stain anything, the jars can be put on the plates. Now they need to be rolled up.
11. Turn the rolled cans upside down and wrap them in a warm towel until they cool completely.

That's all. Ready-made cans can be stored in the cellar until winter. At first, the brine will have a cloudy hue, but after a while a sediment will appear at the bottom, and the brine will brighten.