Of course, adjika, which is prepared in the middle lane, is very far from the Caucasian original. But our winter version of this fragrant sauce, boiled and carefully laid out in jars, is stored for a long time even without a refrigerator.
Adjika for the winter with cooking - general principles of preparation
Adjika can be cooked from almost any vegetable, fruit or even berry. The common thing for all adjika recipes for the winter with cooking is the same - all the ingredients need to be grinded through a meat grinder (as an option - using a blender or food processor). For a quality sauce, you will need pieces of vegetables, so when chopping in a blender, you need to stop in time to prevent mash.
Everything else for each mistress is her own. Someone like hot adjika, some not so much, someone thick and sweeter, someone thin and sour. Therefore, any recipe can be easily adjusted to your preferences, which is quite easy, since many ingredients are interchangeable.
For example, if pumpkin is one of the ingredients in the adjika recipe, but it is not, then you can safely replace it with zucchini or hard pears. Fresh tomatoes can be replaced with canned, tomato paste, or even just thick tomato juice. If you choose the latter option, then depending on the taste of the juice, you may need to adjust the amount of sugar and salt in the recipe. And the biggest flight of imagination can be safely shown in replacing greens and seasonings - pick them exclusively to your taste, but try to cook according to the original recipe.
When changing the recipe, you need to take into account that if you add carrots, pumpkin, sweet apples or zucchini to the sauce, the result will be less sharp - such adjika can be eaten even by children and people with a sensitive stomach. Gooseberries, currants, cherry plums and the usual Antonovka (choose what is at hand) will give a natural sour taste. For adjika, “hotter” it is not necessary to take more hot pepper than stated in the recipe - just leave its seeds in the sauce, they are very burning.
The consistency of adjika for the winter with cooking is another aspect in which gourmets can diverge. To get a thicker product, you can strain the finished sauce through cheesecloth or a fine mesh sieve. If you don’t want to lose a tasty liquid, and the family likes adjika more thickly, then you just need to cook it longer, before evaporating excess water.
Recipe 1. Adjika for the winter with cooking "Family"
Ingredients: for 2.5 kg of good ripe tomatoes, take 1 kg of bell pepper (usually use red, but you can take different colors), 2 chili peppers (suitable for both dried and fresh), 1 kg of carrots (fresh, juicy and sweet), 1 kg of any apples without acidity, 300 g of garlic, a bunch of parsley, 100 g of sugar, a glass of 9% vinegar, a glass of vegetable oil and a couple of tablespoons of salt.
Cooking method
Prepare apples and peppers - seedless. Then grind carrots, apples, tomatoes and sweet peppers, as described at the beginning of the article. Put everything together in a large pot and put on low heat. If you are preparing immediately a large winter supply of adjika, you can take an enameled bucket for cooking. Stirring periodically, first bring the mixture to a boil, and then cook for 1 hour.
Grind garlic and hot pepper in any convenient way. Hot pepper seeds can be left. Parsley sorted by leaves, stems are not needed. Finely chopping is not worth it - let it be beautiful, you can even leave the leaves whole. Put it at the very end of cooking, 5 minutes until cooked.
After an hour of cooking, add vinegar, oil, salt, sugar, parsley, pepper and garlic, mix very well and bring to a boil. The resulting adjika will be tender and not very sharp - indeed, for the whole family. Put ready, still hot sauce in banks and roll up.
Recipe 2. Adjika for the winter with cooking from zucchini
Ingredients: 2 large zucchini, 200 g horseradish, 2 strong heads of garlic, 200 g tomato paste, a bunch of parsley, a glass of any vegetable oil, 4-5 tablespoons of vinegar 9%, 100 g of salt, 3 teaspoons of chopped pepper (of course, hot), 1 cup of plain water.
Cooking method
In this recipe, it is impossible to grind vegetables according to the general principle, since zucchini will still turn into mashed potatoes, but in this case it is exactly what you need. In the resulting squash mass add tomato paste, vegetable oil, salt, hot pepper and simmer for an hour and a half.
Grind garlic and parsley at this time. Grate horseradish on a grater (preferably fine), and if you don’t want to bother with it and breathe a pungent odor, you can replace the fresh root with the same amount of ready-made horseradish. In this case, you need to choose the one that is more generous - sweet or sour will not work.
After 1.5 hours, add garlic, horseradish and parsley to zucchini, dilute the vinegar with a glass of water and pour it there. After stirring, simmer another 10 minutes, then bring to a boil and pour into banks.
Recipe 3. Adjika for the winter with cooking with walnuts without tomatoes
Ingredients: 2 kg of sweet peppers (for beauty you can take peppers of different colors), 5 fresh hot peppers, 200 g of garlic, 0.5 kg of unshelled walnuts, half a glass of apple cider vinegar, 100 g of sugar, 2 tablespoons of salt.
Cooking method
Adjika according to this recipe is prepared very quickly, so you need to prepare the jars in advance, otherwise you just may not have time to roll up the sauce while still hot.
A real Caucasian adjika is unthinkable without walnuts, but for some reason they are rarely put in winter preparations, and in vain - they add a unique touch to the sauce. Nuts must be thoroughly cleaned from the remains of partitions and crushed. You can do this in a blender, slightly push up in a mortar, or even just break it into small pieces with your hands.
Peppers free from seeds, peel garlic, chop together in a meat grinder or blender. Add nuts, salt, sugar and vinegar to the mixture, put on a small fire and cook for only 15 minutes, do not forget to stir.
Recipe 4. Green adjika for the winter with cooking
Ingredients: 3 kg of green tomatoes, 1 kg of green bell pepper, 200 g of garlic, 3 pods of green hot pepper, a few feathers of green onions, half a liter of vegetable oil, half a glass of salt, 4 tablespoons of vinegar 9%.
Cooking method
Tomatoes that have not had time to ripen, you can not only salt - they make the original green adjika. Use for cooking only dense absolutely green tomatoes. If the tomato begins to turn yellow or pink, then it has a completely different taste, so such a vegetable will not work for green adjika.
Peel sweet peppers from seeds, and leave them for hot peppers for hot pepper. Grind tomatoes and both types of peppers according to the general scheme, without bringing them to a state of homogeneous liquid mass. Add oil and salt to the mixture, boil quickly and then simmer for 1 hour over low heat. Then put chopped garlic and green onions, pour vinegar and, stirring, boil for another 20 minutes.
As a result, adjika will have a cheerful green color, it will only be rolled up into banks. Now all winter you can enjoy not only its taste, but also its beauty.
Recipe 5. Adjika for the winter with cooking (with eggplant)
Ingredients: 2-3 eggplants with a total weight of about 2 kg, 1.5 kg of tomatoes, 1 kg of sweet bell pepper, 3 chili peppers, 300 grams of garlic, a glass of oil (suitable sunflower), 100 ml of vinegar, salt and sugar - as much as you like.
Cooking method
Peel and cut eggplant in large pieces. The shape does not matter - later, anyway, these pieces will need to be crushed. Salt well, put in a colander, which put in the sink for 20 minutes. During this time, the juice will leave the eggplant, and with it their specific bitterness will leave.
Sweet and hot peppers clear of seeds. Grind in a blender or meat grinder, do the same with tomatoes. Then rinse the eggplant with salt, squeeze it well with your hands and also grind it.
Mix all ingredients except vinegar and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and boil for another 40 minutes, stirring so that the sauce does not burn. At the same time, cans and lids can be sterilized.
Then pour vinegar into the broth, mix well and boil for another 10 minutes. Pour the hot adjika into the prepared jars and roll it up.
Recipe 6. Adjika for the winter with cooking "Wicked"
Ingredients: 2.5 kg of hot peppers, a pound of garlic, 1 kg of fresh green cilantro and basil (proportion to taste), 1 kg of tomatoes, 50 g of dill seeds, 100 g of chopped black pepper, 100 g of coriander, 100 g of sugar and salt. Also need water (boiling water and cold).
Cooking method
Incise the tomatoes crosswise, put in a deep pan and pour boiling water over it. After 2 minutes, drain the hot water and pour the tomatoes in very cold water until they cool. Now you can easily remove the skin from them, it will not be needed.
Cut stalks from peppers, seeds do not need to be removed. Cut into thin circles and put in a large pot. Grate tomatoes there or just cut into cubes. Add salt and put on a small fire. After 15 minutes add dry seasonings and sugar. Stirring occasionally, you need to cook as much time as it takes to reduce the volume by about a third - you get a rather thick sauce.
While the mixture is boiling, squeeze the garlic through a press and chop very finely all the greens.
When the almost finished adjika has acquired the desired consistency, put the garlic in it and boil for another 5 minutes. As a final touch you need to add greens, mix everything very well and bring to a boil.
Put it in banks - and that’s it, the stock of the worst adzhika is ready. To use in moderation, children are not recommended.
Recipe 7. Fragrant adjika for the winter with cooking
Ingredients: 2 kg of tomatoes, 500 g of onions, 2-3 apples, 80 ml of vinegar 9%, 150 g of sugar, half a teaspoon of ground burning red and black pepper; salt, cinnamon, cloves and bay leaf - as much as you see fit.
Cooking method
Onions for this recipe need to choose high-quality - strong and burning, not sprouted.
Grind tomatoes, apples without seeds and onions, as written at the beginning of the article. Pour salt, sugar into the mixture and bring to a boil. Add seasonings to the broth and simmer over low heat for 40 minutes. After that, pour in the vinegar and boil a little more (5-10 minutes).
Adjika according to this recipe is liquid, but very fragrant.
Recipe 8. Adjika for the winter with cooking from fresh cucumbers with ginger
Ingredients: 1 kg of fresh strong cucumbers, small zucchini, 0.5 kg of cauliflower, 2 l of water, 1.5 l of vinegar 6%, 20 g of ground ginger, a glass of sugar, 100 g of salt, 2 tablespoons of flour, 20 g of mustard powder, 10 g of turmeric.
Cooking method
This is probably the most original adjika recipe, but you can’t quickly make a sauce using it.
Cucumbers should be strong, crispy, the skin should not be bitter, since peeling cucumbers is not required.
Cut vegetables into small cubes, add water and salt and leave to soak for a day or at least for the night. Then drain the water, pour the vegetables with vinegar and put on a slow fire. At this point, it is better to open the window in the kitchen or turn on the hood, as there will be very strong vinegar steam. After 10 minutes add sugar, ginger and the rest of the ingredients on the list.
Cook, stirring, until the vegetables become soft, but have not yet begun to boil - they should remain in pieces. Hot ready adjika roll up in jars.
Adjika for the winter with cooking - tricks and useful tips
1. High-quality vegetables are the key to delicious adjika for the winter with cooking, you can not save on them. Bad ingredients will not make a fragrant sauce, and a specific taste cannot be created only with the help of vinegar and seasonings. Tomatoes must be ripe and fleshy, and "rubber" tomatoes that do not even smell - will not work. If the recipe contains carrots, then it should be juicy and sweet. Garlic should be selected solid, not sprouted, with large cloves, and pepper should not be sluggish.
2. An indispensable ingredient of adjika for the winter with cooking - hot pepper - is very hot. Hands after cutting it can itch a lot. In order not to spoil the skin, it is necessary to use thin rubber gloves, you can even wear 2 pairs at once.
3. Adjika needs to be cooked in dishes whose surface does not oxidize, for example, in enamel. For relatively small portions, a large frying pan with thick walls (cast iron) is also suitable.
4. If as a result adjika turned out to be too salty or too sharp - no big deal. The main thing - do not rush to dilute it with water. Instead, it is better to cook another portion of the sauce, but exclude salt or pepper from it (or greatly reduce the quantity), then mix both parts and boil for several minutes.
5. In order to keep the adjika stocks for a long time even in a simple cabinet, it is better to roll it into cans with metal lids, rather than close them with screw ones. And so that the open jar does not stand in the refrigerator for a long time, it makes sense to lay out the sauce in half-liter containers.
6. Many love adjika and are ready to eat it a lot and with anything. Adjika, especially acute, lowers cholesterol and helps in losing weight. But she, like many seasonings, increases her appetite due to her taste, which leads to overeating - therefore, vigilance is needed.
