A step-by-step recipe for pickling cucumbers for the winter with French mustard
Pickled cucumbers are one of the most popular winter preparations. Canned vegetables are stored for a long time, become crispy during cooking and acquire a pleasant taste. Cucumbers with the addition of French mustard are an unusual dish in which the sweetish marinade has spicy notes with a touch of pungency, transmitted to vegetables. Such a preparation can be eaten as an independent dish, as an addition to side dishes or on sandwiches.
Features of pickling cucumbers with French mustard for the winter
Marinating keeps the cucumbers ready for consumption for a long time. A feature of harvesting cucumbers with French mustard for the winter is that vegetables are placed in jars not whole, but cut into pieces. Such preparation can shorten the shelf life of vegetables.
To keep the product longer, the empty container and the finished dish are sterilized, and vinegar is added to the marinade. Garlic and horseradish also have good preservative properties.
Required ingredients for the recipe
For cooking, take:
- cucumbers - 2.5 kg;
- water - 1.2 l;
- vinegar 9% - 300 ml;
- sugar - 1 glass;
- salt - 3 tbsp. l .;
- French mustard - 6 tbsp. l .;
- allspice peas - 10 pcs.;
- mustard seeds - 2.5 tsp;
- black peppercorns - 25 pcs.;
- garlic - 5 cloves;
- horseradish root - 1/2 pc .;
- dill umbrellas - 5 pcs.
Product selection rules
Cucumbers should be fresh, with no signs of rot or damage. It is advisable to use young, not overripe vegetables for preservation.
Before cooking, they can be put in cold water and left for 6 hours to become crispier.
How to prepare a container?
Cucumbers should be marinated in glass jars with a tight-fitting lid. They should not have cracks or chips.
The containers are washed under hot running water with soap and soda, then rinsed and dried. Clean jars are placed with their neck down on a wire rack over a pot of boiling water. The time during which steam sterilization is carried out is 15 minutes, after which the fire is turned off and the container is left to cool in the same position on the wire rack. The cooled cans are moved, without turning, onto a clean towel.
The lids are sterilized over steam with the jars or boiled separately. The sterilized caps are moved with tweezers onto a clean towel.
Cooking process
The cucumbers are washed and cut into 4 pieces. Allspice and black pepper, mustard seeds and dill umbrellas are placed on the bottom of the cans.Garlic and horseradish are peeled and also placed in containers. Sliced cucumbers are placed on top of the spices.
To prepare the marinade, mix water, vinegar, sugar, salt and French mustard. The resulting solution in a cold form is poured into jars of vegetables.
The containers are covered with lids and placed in a pot of water, placed on the fire. To prevent the cans from slipping, you can lay a towel on the bottom of the pan. The workpieces are sterilized for 10 minutes at low boiling water.
The cans sterilized in this way are rolled up and turned upside down. You can cover them with a blanket or thick towel to cool down more slowly. After the jars are completely cool, they are turned over and put away for storage.
Terms and conditions of storage of pickled cucumbers
The workpiece should be stored in a dark place at a low temperature. You can use a pantry, cellar or basement for these purposes. It is necessary to ensure that the sun does not fall on the jars of cucumbers.
It is important to remember that closed jars can be stored at room temperature, and open ones must be moved to the refrigerator. The shelf life of a closed piece is about 1 year, an open piece (if stored in a refrigerator) - up to 1 week. At room temperature, open jars remain edible for no more than 2-3 days.
