The winter diet contains quite a few vegetables, and to correct this problem, some housewives are preparing canned food. Many of them make eggplant lecho for the winter. This dish differs from many other preserves in its sweetish taste, which is achieved thanks to pepper.
If you know how to cook lecho correctly, you can make a dish so tasty that you will lick your fingers.
Basic recommendations
To prepare eggplant lecho for the winter, you need to familiarize yourself with some useful recommendations, which include the following:
- The principle of preparing lecho with eggplant is practically no different from creating lecho with tomatoes or peppers. The only difference is in the ingredients, since in this case you will have to use blue ones.
- When creating a snack, be sure to add vinegar. It acts as a preservative and makes the dish more sour. If you completely avoid vinegar, the snack will have an inexpressive taste.
- Lecho for the winter should be prepared only from the most ripe vegetables. If a dish is prepared with tomatoes and peppers, then the tomatoes should be juicy and the peppers should be sweet.
- To prepare the snack, it is recommended to use eggplants, which contain a large amount of solanine. To check whether they contain this substance, you will have to separate the vegetable and examine the pulp in cross-section. If it turns lighter after a few minutes, then there is no solanine in the cut eggplant.
- Blue ones that begin to darken during cutting are recommended to be immediately covered with salt and left to infuse. Literally after 5 minutes the vegetables will begin to release juice and thanks to this their bitterness will completely disappear. If the eggplants are soaked in a saline solution before rolling, then during the preparation of lecho you will have to add a little less salt.
- It is not recommended to close eggplant lecho for the winter without sterilization. Therefore, before preservation, all containers with lids must be sterilized.
Sterilization of containers
Before you begin processing the containers, you must thoroughly wash all jars with lids. Also, containers should be inspected for chips or cracks, since whole jars must be used for preservation.
Steam sterilization
To sterilize jars with steam, you will have to use a pan of water. It is recommended to use the widest possible pan so that you can process the maximum number of jars at once. A sieve is installed on top of the pan, on which the containers for preservation will be placed.
When the water begins to boil, several cans are placed on a sieve and steamed for 5-10 minutes. During processing, the jars become very hot and therefore need to be removed very carefully so as not to accidentally get burned.
Oven
Some housewives roll up eggplant lecho for the winter in jars that have previously been processed in the oven. It is not recommended to use a gas oven for sterilization, as it can overheat and cause the container to deteriorate.
During sterilization, the container is placed in the oven upside down. If the oven is heated to 100 degrees, the processing process should last at least 15 minutes. At higher temperatures, the duration of sterilization decreases.
Classic recipe
Many people use the classic recipe for preparing this dish to prepare a good and tasty lecho. To prepare Georgian lecho for the winter, you will need the following products:
- kilogram of tomatoes;
- 2 kg of eggplants;
- 450 g pepper;
- 400 g carrots;
- four onions;
- head of garlic;
- 100 g salt;
- 150 g sugar;
- 40 ml vinegar.
Preservation of blue ones is created in several stages. First, you should start preparing all the ingredients that go into making the best winter snack. All tomatoes are thoroughly washed and cut into several equal parts, from which the stalks must be removed. Then the tomatoes are crushed using a blender or an ordinary meat grinder.
Having finished with the tomatoes, you can prepare the blue ones. They need to be washed, cut out the tip and the tail located on the opposite side. If after slicing the vegetable begins to darken, you will have to transfer it to a bowl and cover it with salt. After half an hour, the eggplant juice is drained, and the chopped blue ones are squeezed out to remove excess liquid.
When the blue tomatoes and tomatoes are ready for preservation, you can move on to the rest of the products. The pepper is cut into two equal parts, from which all seeds should be removed. Then it is cut into several wide strips. Carrots are washed from dirt, peeled, cut into strips or grated. The garlic is cooked last. It needs to be peeled, washed and finely chopped.
All the ingredients are ready and you can start preparing the container. Banks are sterilized using any of the methods described above. To process the seaming lids, you will have to boil them in a pan of water for 5 minutes.
In parallel with sterilizing the container, you can start preparing the dish. Tomato puree is poured into a small saucepan and placed on low heat. After the liquid boils, you can add the rest of the vegetables with sugar, salt and butter. All this is mixed and simmered for 50 minutes. At the end of cooking, vinegar is added to the mixture.
The prepared lecho is placed in containers and immediately preserved.
After finishing canning, turn the jars upside down and wrap them in a towel until they cool completely.
Conclusion
Anyone can make eggplant lecho for the winter. To do this, you will have to familiarize yourself with the main features of preparation and recipes for eggplant lecho for the winter. If you wish, you can also watch videos that describe in detail the process of preparing the snack.
