Strawberry jam "Five minutes" for the winter
In summer, a useful strawberry grows in a forest, in a meadow or in a summer cottage. Most vitamins in wild strawberries. In the cold season, you really want to feel the aroma of summer and treat yourself to a healthy treat. To do this, you can cook jam "Five minutes".
Beneficial features
Wild strawberries benefit the cardiovascular, endocrine, excretory systems, gastrointestinal tract, and are used for prevention to strengthen the immune system. The excellent results of the use of wild berries in cosmetology are widely known. Wishing that the skin was smooth and delicate, ancient Roman and ancient Greek aristocrats plunged into baths filled with strawberry juice. Even picking small red berries in a basket is a healing procedure for the body and the fight against physical inactivity.
Harvesting berries
Wild strawberries become ripe in June-July. The best time to fill the basket with berries is in the morning, when there is no longer dew on the grass, or in the evening. Berries should be picked off gently and carefully so as not to wrinkle and put dry in a basket. You need to go to the forest in sunny weather, as the strawberries picked after the rain are watery and tasteless. When compiling a route for picking berries, it should be remembered that plants growing along roads and in ecologically unfavorable areas are toxic.
Bringing home the berries, they immediately need to be processed. Field, forest or garden strawberries need to be sorted out from:
- grass or tree leaves;
- coniferous needles;
- insects;
- spoiled or rotten berries.
Berries with tender pulp are recommended not to be washed. The pressure of water will spoil the structure of the strawberries, and it will turn into an ugly gruel. But this option is not suitable for Pyatiminutka jam: the berries must be freed from dust by gently washing.
You can put the sorted strawberries in a wide basin with cool water and wash. And you can wash the berries under a thin stream of cold running water so as not to damage the scarlet berries. After that, throw the fruits in a colander, the water will drain from them in fifteen minutes. Next, spread the berries on paper towels, pre-spread on the table, and let them dry. Remove the sepals from the washed and dried strawberries.
What is required for cooking?
Since the time for making jam, based on the name, is only five minutes, all the necessary items and products must be prepared in advance.
You will need:
- saucepan or basin made of stainless steel;
- wooden spoon;
- seaming key;
- metal or plastic covers;
- ordinary jars with a capacity of 0.5 liters or decorative glass jars;
- granulated sugar;
- silver spoon or fork;
- carrot;
- household scales.
Do not use aluminum utensils for cooking jam, since berry acid, interacting with the metal, forms harmful substances.
Jam "5-minute" can be quickly and easily cooked, for example, in a slow cooker, given all our recommendations. Raspberries can be added to the jam.
Recipes
with boiling
To make a five-minute strawberry dessert for 1 kg of fresh berries, you need to take 1.5 kg of granulated sugar, although housewives change this ratio to their liking and depending on the sweetness of the berries. In the bowl where the jam will be prepared, the prepared berries are transferred and covered with sugar.
You can sprinkle the fruits with granulated sugar in layers. The container with the ingredients is left in a cold place for 1-2 hours. During this time, the fruits will secrete strawberry juice, in which sugar will dissolve. The mass in the bowl or basin will become liquid.
There is a second way to prepare berries for cooking. For him, half a kilogram of strawberries, 350 grams of sugar and a third of a glass of water are taken. A syrup is prepared from sugar and water, which is poured over the berries. The syrup is cooked in the usual way. Water is brought to a boil, sand is poured into it, the mixture is boiled over low heat for three minutes.
After the berries covered with sugar have allocated the right amount of juice or have been filled with sweet syrup, the container is put on fire. The foam formed during cooking is carefully removed from the surface with a wooden spoon. From the first minute of boiling the contents of the pan, it is necessary to reduce the heat, turn on the timer, or set the time on the clock. Cook the jam for exactly five minutes.
Jars and lids must be sterilized and dried. Carefully, in order not to burn yourself, you need to fill the jars with a delicious treat and roll them up with a key. Then try to remove the lid from the jar. If the work with the key is carried out correctly, then this will not work.
Turning the jar over, you need to follow the jam in it. The syrup that has leaked out indicates that the jar is poorly rolled up with a lid, and the product will not stand idle for a long time. Wrap the finished jam in a blanket or blanket and wait for it to cool completely.With the foam removed from the surface of the jam, you can drink tea and take a break after the work done.
No boiling
To get the maximum healing properties from the use of strawberries, Pyatiminutka jam is prepared without boiling.
- To obtain 1.5 l of the product, you need to take 0.5 kg of strawberries and 1.1 kg of sugar.
- Properly prepared strawberries are placed in a container, covered with sugar, shaken several times and put in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.
- After half of the sugar has dissolved in the strawberry juice, the container with the contents is removed from the refrigerator and placed on the stove over a slow fire. The raw material is heated until the sugar is completely dissolved. To prevent the jam from burning, it must be constantly carefully mixed with a wooden or silicone spatula. The main thing is not to bring the mixture to a boil.
- The finished product is laid out in pre-prepared jars, closed and kept indoors until completely cooled. Dessert in its structure resembles jam and is stored only in the refrigerator. The bitterness inherent in strawberries is not felt in the product, since a large amount of sugar is used in its preparation.
With redcurrant
For 1.25 liters of dessert you need to take:
- strawberries - 500 g;
- red currant - 200 g;
- sugar - 750 g;
- water - 150 ml.
The step by step recipe is as follows.
- Put the prepared dugout in a basin, pour 0.5 kg of granulated sugar and set aside.
- Pour the washed and sorted currants with water and boil for five minutes. After rubbing the gruel through a fine sieve, get currant juice. Mix it with the remaining sugar.
- After the strawberries covered with sugar stand for an hour, and the mass in the basin becomes liquid, add currant juice to the container and mix everything gently.
- Place the bowl on the stove and bring to a boil over low heat. Increase the heat, cook the jam for five minutes, removing the foam from the surface.
- Arrange the finished product in jars and seal tightly.
How to get rid of bitterness?
Wild strawberries, especially those that grow in dense pine forests, are slightly bitter. At the same time, the bitterness does not disappear even after the heat treatment of the berries. To save the product prepared for the winter from an unpleasant aftertaste, it is recommended to put one of the ingredients in boiling jam:
- peeled large carrots;
- silver object (spoon or fork);
- garden or forest berries.
Adding berries will give the jam a different taste. It is best to use berries that ripen with strawberries. From garden fruits, red or black currants are suitable, from forest fruits - lingonberries or blueberries.
An unusual taste of strawberry dessert is given by ground nuts added during cooking.
How to store?
Ready jam is stored in a dark cool place. It can be a cellar, basement or pantry. Check the preservation after a week: if the lids are swollen, the dessert must be digested.
An opened jar can be stored in the refrigerator for up to seven days. At the first sign of mold, the product is unfit for consumption. Strawberry dessert, in which nuts are added, is stored exclusively in the refrigerator.
The prepared fragrant dish can be served with fresh pastries - buns, pancakes, pancakes, cheesecakes. It can be eaten with a spoon with tea. They can season porridge or cottage cheese, just spread on a loaf or bread. Strawberry jam is used as a filling for strudel or pancakes.
Strawberry jam is a useful product that combines the qualities of a delicacy and a medicine.In the autumn-winter period, tea, to which a couple of spoons of boiled strawberries are added, becomes a prophylactic against influenza and seasonal colds. Wild strawberries are the richest in useful elements, they are almost one and a half times more than those of meadow and garden relatives. However, it should be remembered that any sugar-containing product spoils teeth, contributes to obesity, can cause allergic reactions, and increase the acidity of the stomach.
Important: strawberry jam prepared according to the Five Minute recipe is forbidden for women to use while breastfeeding the baby. A nursing mother can add strawberry dessert prepared according to other recipes to her menu.
For information on how to make five-minute strawberry jam, see the video below.