With the onset of hot weather, it is normal for orchards to fill up with vegetables, but what can be done to make the most of this overproduction?
At the height of summer, crops of the nightshade family (tomato, pepper, eggplant, etc.) abound and there are periods of great harvests. canned natural peppers can be a great alternative.
And it is that one of best remedies for preserving food is to use canned food. For this reason, in this article we are going to reveal all the secrets to make a canned peppers naturally simple and fast.
Thus, when winter comes, you can enjoy your peppers as if you had just picked them that day.
Did you know that canned foods as we know them began to be made in the 15th and 16th centuries?
Then we leave you with the three great promoters of this wonderful food preservation technique:
- Nicolas Appert: He invented hermetic preservation thanks to a glass bottle which he covered with a cork stopper and placed in a bain-marie.
- Pierre Duran: He vacuum-packed food in wrought-iron cans.
- Louis Pasteur: who applied the technique of pasteurization so that food could be stored longer without the appearance of microorganisms.
However, today the food preservation technique can be applied by anyone in a homemade way. Therefore, below we reveal to you all the secrets to make a canned peppers to nature quickly.
We teach you the simplest techniques to preserve peppers naturally.
read more: How to store mushrooms in glass jars
Contents
Ingredients to store peppers
Next we leave you the ingredients you will need to make a canned peppers quick and easy.
- Peppers (of course)
- salt
- Water
- Sterilized jars with lids.
Step by step to preserve peppers naturally
To do good canned peppers, you must first select them by color. We recommend separating the green peppers from the red ones.
In fact, for the canned peppers Ideally, we recommend that you do:
- A cooking jam for red peppers.
- Canned by frying for green peppers.
First of all, you must roast the whole red peppers. You can use the embers if you wrap them in aluminum foil. Although you can also use the oven, if you place them on a tray with a little water.
For green peppers, it is better to brown them in a pan with oil and salt.
When red peppers are properly roasted, you will see how the skin comes off easily. It is therefore necessary to put the red peppers in a basin of cold water to lower the temperature and to be able to peel them quickly.
Remember that you need to remove the seeds and the petiole so that they are completely clean.
In the case of green peppers, you must clean the seeds and the petiole before frying them. But to remove the skin, after frying, you also have to wait for them to cool. In this case, it would not be necessary to put them in cold water because they would lose some of the flavor of the frying.
Finally, for already peeled red peppers, you must blanch them in boiling water for 5 minutes and you would have them ready to place in the jars.
How are the canning jars filled?
When you have the peppers ready, it is important that you manually put them into the jars.
Remember that green and red peppers should not go in the same jar, although later they can be sterilized in the same jar.
In fact, for sterilization to be more effective, you must fill the jar with peppers and when there are none left, fill the holes in the jar with water and half a tablespoon of salt per jar. .
How to sterilize the jars?
The quickest and easiest way to sterilize filled jars is to cover them and place them in a pan of water. However, for this method to be effective, the water must be under the lids of the jars.
Once the pot is ready, simply let it rest for 45 minutes over low heat.
It is important that you choose a large jar where you can place a lid so that the jars are well sealed in the jar. In this way, they will be completely sterilized, thus preventing the proliferation of bacteria.
When the 45 minutes have passed, you must uncover the jar and let the jars cool on their own so that you can handle them.
If you have performed a correct sterilization, the jars should exert a slight pressure when opening and you will usually be able to hear a “Click on“, turning the lid.
Additional tips for preserving natural peppers
Here are some additional tips that will improve the preparation of your canned peppers.
- When stuffing the green peppers, you can add a little olive oil. This will prevent them from losing flavor and texture when you need to consume them.
- The Pepper it is also a very powerful natural preservative. For this reason, you can add a pinch to each jar when filling them with peppers. Although, if you prefer, you can also use a teaspoon of vinegar.
Both are very powerful preservatives and will make your preserve last much longer. However, keep in mind that they can alter the flavor, so their use is optional.
If you want to make sure there are no bacteria in your can, you can sanitize if you wash the jars in the dishwasher before using them.
This process usually reaches temperatures above 60 degreesthus your pots will be free of bacteria and you will be able to use them in complete safety.