Features of the preparation of an unusual dessert from a vegetable. Food selection rules. TOP 5 recipes for cucumber jam. Video recipes.
Cucumber jam is an original dessert with an interesting taste. Despite the fact that this vegetable is widely grown in our country and is actively used for food, sweets from it are considered exotic. On the other hand, jam as a dish is considered traditional for the Slavic peoples and was first “invented” several hundred years ago. History claims that the delicacy of cucumbers and honey was Ivan the Terrible's favorite. It is also worth noting that everyone who once tastes this unusual dish becomes a true fan of it. Currently, there are many options for making cucumber jam, the list of which is constantly growing. Therefore, each chef will be able to take one of the existing ones as a basis and supplement it with his own culinary fantasies, making another chef's masterpiece.
Features of cooking cucumber jam
Cucumber jam according to the cooking technology differs little from other options for a similar dessert. The most important thing is to choose the best raw materials, calculate the optimal proportions of the main product with sugar and add the most suitable additional ingredients.
Cucumbers are a very healthy product that does not have a pronounced taste, but they have a pleasant refreshing aroma. This makes them an excellent base for jam. But before making the cucumber jam, you need to choose the right vegetable.
The fruits should be fresh, without external damage, sufficiently dense, but juicy. The best option is considered to be small gherkins, up to 5 cm long. They have the most delicious pulp, while lacking large seeds. However, in fact, you can even make a delicacy from overripe fruits. It is advisable to choose a sweeter variety so that there is no bitterness.
Sometimes sugar can be replaced with honey, but do not forget that when heated above 60 degrees, this product loses most of its nutrients and acquires some harmful properties.
To diversify the taste, various berries and fruits, herbs and spices are added to the list of ingredients, each time getting an original dish.
Almost every recipe contains lemon or citric acid. These ingredients not only give a pleasant aroma and exotic taste to the finished dessert, but also allow you to preserve the color of other ingredients, because prevent their oxidation and subsequent darkening while they are letting in the juice and boiling.
It is worth making harvesting delicacies in the summer season of the cucumber harvest, because it is at this time that the fruits are saturated with a large amount of nutrients, warmed by the summer sun and, with proper care, do not contain substances hazardous to health. The same cannot be said for those cucumbers that are grown in greenhouses using various stimulants, pest preparations and fertilizers. In addition, in summer, prices for the main ingredient are the lowest.
To make the perfect jam, you need to properly prepare the cucumbers. Sometimes it is enough just to rinse young fruits and get rid of the stalk. Larger and more mature seeds need to be peeled and removed from large seeds. If there is bitterness, the fruits can be soaked in cold water.
Experienced chefs note that the more often and shorter cucumber jam is cooked, the tastier and more aromatic it turns out. For heat treatment and boiling, do a low heat, not allowing the mass to boil too much. Remember to stir constantly to avoid sticking to the bottom of the container. During cooking, foam is released to the surface, which must be removed so that the jam ultimately turns out transparent.
TOP 5 recipes for cucumber jam
There are many options for making this dessert. Yes, cucumbers with added sugar or honey are the main ingredients, but experienced chefs have significantly expanded the classic recipe by adding additional ingredients. In each case, the result is an original and unlike anything else delicacy. We present to your attention the TOP-5 proven cucumber jam recipes for the winter.
Cucumber jam with orange and lemon
This option is one of the most common. Cucumber jam with lemon and orange is very simple to prepare, but the result is an incredibly fragrant and healthy dish that can be added to baked goods, smeared on bread, or simply eaten with a spoon.
- Caloric content per 100 g - 452 kcal.
- Servings Per Container - 12
- Cooking time - 1 hour 30 minutes
Ingredients:
- Cucumbers - 1 kg
- Granulated sugar - 600 g
- Cinnamon - 1 stick
- Lemon - 1 pc.
- Orange - 1 pc.
- Cloves - 3-4 pcs.
- Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Step-by-step preparation of cucumber jam with lemon and orange:
- We prepare cucumbers: rinse and, if necessary, peel and remove seeds. Grind with a knife into small cubes or cubes.
- We peel the citrus fruits - orange and lemon - and get rid of the seeds and all the white partitions that can make the finished dessert a little bitter. Cut into small pieces with a sharp knife.
- Place the prepared ingredients in a saucepan with a thick bottom, add sugar, add vanilla and cloves. Mix a little and leave for 20-40 minutes so that the cucumbers and citrus fruits let the juice flow.
- Next, put the container on a quiet fire and boil for about 30 minutes. Do not forget to stir. During this time, the sugar syrup thickens.
- We proceed to the preparation of cans and lids for preservation - we rinse and set to sterilize.
- If there is a lot of liquid, then let the future delicacy stand a little, and then put it on a quiet fire again for another 20-30 minutes. At this time, you can take a sample and add sugar if necessary.
- We pour the ready-made jam into prepared containers, roll it up and put it upside down on the table until it cools completely.
- Fresh cucumber jam is ready! Store it in the refrigerator or in a cool place out of sunlight.
Cucumber jam with lemon and ginger
This recipe contains approximately the same amount of lemon and cucumber, which makes the jam quite sweet, but also relatively sour. It is worth noting that the presence of a large amount of citric acid will prevent the jam from becoming sugared during storage. Cooking in a multicooker will help not only to avoid a long stay at the stove and constant stirring, as. its bowl is treated with a non-stick coating, but also to preserve the natural citrus scent as much as possible. Believe me, it will be impossible to resist the captivating and pure scent of lemon. It is good not only to use such a delicacy in food, but also to take it as a medicine against colds in the cold season. Cucumber jam with lemon with the addition of ginger will also be beneficial for digestion, despite the high sugar content.
Ingredients:
- Cucumbers gherkins - 800 g
- Sugar - 600 g
- Lemon - 3 pcs.
- Ginger root - 60 g
- Cinnamon - 15 g
- Carnation - 4 pcs.
- Vanilla - 5 g
Step-by-step preparation of cucumber jam with lemon and ginger:
- We wash the cucumbers thoroughly, remove the stalk. If there are thorns, you can use a sponge that will help you easily remove these prickly elements. Remove the peel if desired. Grind into a medium-sized cube.
- We wash the lemons. Remove the zest from each fruit with a fine grater. Next, we remove all the white shell, bones and partitions. We cut according to the example of gherkins.
- Peel the ginger from the shell and grind it in a blender or rub it on a fine grater.
- We combine all the prepared ingredients in the multicooker bowl, add sugar, vanilla, cloves and cinnamon. We mix.
- If the multicooker has a special mode for making jam, then select it. If there is no such function, then we make our choice by setting the temperature at 90-100 degrees, and the cooking time is 1 hour. In this case, it is sometimes necessary to check the mass so that it does not boil too much.
- After that, we disconnect from the network. Let it stand for 1-2 hours and boil it again, but for a shorter amount of time - up to half an hour.
- Cucumber jam with lemon and ginger in a slow cooker is ready! If desired, it can be canned or placed in sterilized jars and left in the refrigerator.
Cucumber jam with gooseberries
Gooseberry is a berry, excellent in taste and usefulness. It is eagerly eaten fresh, but with the same success the fruits can be used to make jam, for example, with cucumbers. Gooseberry has a sweet and sour taste, which significantly improves the taste of the finished dish and gives the food a lot of useful properties.
Ingredients:
- Cucumbers - 1 kg
- Slightly unripe gooseberries - 500 g
- Sugar - 1 kg
- Citric acid - 3 g
- Spinach juice - 40 ml
Step-by-step preparation of gooseberry cucumber jam:
- First of all, we prepare cucumbers. We clean the more mature ones from the skin, bones, grind and fill with very chilled water for 10-12 hours. Young enough to rinse, cut off their stalk and cut.
- Add sugar to the prepared vegetable. If the cucumbers are overripe, then the first syrup can be drained and covered with granulated sugar again.
- Wash the gooseberries, remove the stalks and tails from it, and then grind in a meat grinder and sprinkle with sugar a little, add spinach juice and citric acid. After that, boil a little over low heat and filter through a sieve or fine colander to remove all the rough elements of the gooseberry skin.
- Fill the cucumbers with the resulting syrup and send the mass to the stove. We set a low heat and boil until the vegetable becomes transparent and the syrup thickens a little. Gooseberry cucumber jam is ready!
Cucumber jam with apples and rosemary
Another great dessert that gives an extraordinary fruit and vegetable combination. And adding rosemary to the list of ingredients makes the finished sweetness slightly spicy and incredibly aromatic. The recipe for cucumber jam with apples and spice is quite simple, but it allows you to diversify the winter menu with bright culinary colors. At the same time, there is no need to take gherkins, which can be rolled up in jars in a spicy brine. For this option, carefully peeled overgrown cucumbers are perfect, which are often simply disposed of.
Ingredients:
- Overripe cucumbers - 1 kg
- Apples - 1 kg
- Sugar - 700 g
- Lemon - 1 pc.
- Fresh rosemary - 2 sprigs
Step by step cooking of cucumber jam with apples and rosemary:
- We wash all vegetables and fruits.
- We clean the cucumbers. Only the pulp without large seeds and peel should go into the jam. For chopping, use a coarse grater or blender. Separate the excess juice.
- Remove the zest from the lemon using a fine grater. Only the top yellow layer containing essential oil and nutrients should go into the dish. Cut in half and squeeze out the juice.
- Peel the apples, seeds and rough partitions in the core. The resulting waste is placed in a gauze bag. Grind the pulp of the fruit with a grater.
- We prepare a container suitable for cooking. This can be a heavy-bottomed saucepan or a wide metal bowl. We place blanks from apples and cucumbers in it, fill it with lemon juice, add sugar. We leave for 30-40 minutes. We also put a gauze bag with apple peelings here so that it is not difficult to remove it at the end of the cooking process.
- Chop the rosemary and place it in the cucumber-apple mass. We mix.
- Over low heat, gradually bring the mixture to a boil and boil for only 20 minutes. Apple jam tends to burn, so you need to be near the stove and stir constantly. After that we take a break and boil again 1-2 times during the day for 15 minutes.
- We remove the gauze bag, and lay out the workpiece in the jars and roll it up. Apple cucumber jam with rosemary is ready!
Cucumber jam with mint and lime
Another exotic food combination is cucumber and mint with a citrusy lime note. A kind of cucumber mojito will appeal to gourmets both in winter and in summer, when they want freshness so much. Jam based on these products can not only be eaten in the usual way, but also added to tea and various cocktails.
Ingredients:
- Cucumbers - 1 kg
- Granulated sugar - 600 g
- Lime - 2 pcs.
- Fresh mint - 100 g
Step-by-step preparation of cucumber jam with mint and lime:
- We carefully remove the cucumbers from contamination, remove the peel with a vegetable peeler, take out large seeds. Chop the pulp into small cubes.
- Rinse fresh mint leaves and pass in a blender.
- Remove the zest from the lime on a fine grater and squeeze the juice.
- In a container suitable for cooking, mix cucumbers, mint, sugar. Pour in lime juice and add zest. We leave the resulting fragrant workpiece for several hours until a sufficient amount of juice is released from the ingredients.
- We put on the stove and slowly bring to a boil. Leave the heat on low and boil for 30-40 minutes. During this time, the consistency of the brew becomes similar to caramel.
- Cucumber jam with mint is ready! Next, pour it into sterilized glass jars, roll it up and, after cooling completely, send it for storage.
