How to cook dried fruits to get a delicious uzvar?

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Dried fruit compote - vitamin salvation in months, scarce for fresh fruits and vegetables. Much better and tastier than vitamin pharmacy complexes. However, to get the maximum benefit, you need to know how to cook dried fruits correctly so that you don’t get tasty and fragrant, but useless water instead of a he alth drink.

Choose the base

Before you cook dried fruits, you first have to buy them, unless you have a grandmother in the village who regularly supplies you with them. And some varieties of “drying” (figs, dried apricots, prunes or raisins) cannot be done at home.

What you need to consider when buying dried fruits is their appearance. First of all, pay attention to the uniformity of color: whitish spots are most likely mold. Oily and matte sheen indicates the processing of fruits with some preservatives for longer storage or when trying to give a more marketable appearance. Humidity and darkening - about violations of storage rules. Dryness up to the state of "soles" - about improper production or airing. It is not worth buying and using such a product, since boiling dried fruits in this state means not only spoiling the drink, but also risking the he alth of your stomach.

Multi-component compote

First of all, we will stipulate that it is not necessary to stuff half a “drying” pot. It should be about half a glass for every liter of water. And the main thing is how to cook dried fruit uzvar - this is their alternate laying. The most common recipe for a successful compote involves initially preparing syrup. For him, sugar is poured into a pot of boiling water, the amount of which depends solely on your preferences. After dissolution, dried apples, apricots (not dried apricots, but domestic ones) and pears are first placed. If they are cut into large or thick slices, they are chopped more finely. Ten minutes later, rose hips, prunes and mountain ash are poured. Then comes the raisins, and after five minutes the fire is turned off, the pan is covered with a lid, and the uzvar is left to infuse for about half a day.

Dried apple compote

In this case, the process is somehow facilitated, since it is somewhat easier to cook dried fruits-apples - you do not need to calculate the reunion time of the remaining ingredients. Again, syrup is first made in a ratio of a little less than half a glass of sugar per liter of water. When it is completely dissolved, after boiling water, sorted and washed apples are poured. For a third of an hour they cook alone, thenclove with lemon balm is added; after ten minutes you can turn it off, and after cooling - flavor with lemon zest.

Vitamin compote without cooking

The question of questions - how much to cook dried fruits - is the subject of heated debate among those who have an opinion on this matter. Long cooking destroys many of the "usefulness" in the original products, but "long" is how many minutes? The most radical housewives generally advise to abandon cooking. Their advice: rinse the source material well, pour freshly boiled water, cover the container with a lid and wrap tightly. The next morning you get a drink with a maximum content of vitamins. Sugar, if necessary, is added no earlier than a couple of hours after pouring. And it’s better to leave this action until the morning.

Compote tincture

More docile chefs offer a different way to cook dried fruit. They advise soaking the washed product in warm (not hot) water for several hours. For example, also at night. Ratio calculation: two cups of base for two liters of water. The meaning of this method of preparation is precisely in insisting. The swollen fruits are put on fire, topped up with two more liters of water, after boiling they are flavored with sugar, covered with a lid and removed from the stove a couple of minutes after boiling. A lid is required, as many vitamins decompose not so much due to heat, but due to interaction with air. After you have finished cooking dried fruits, leave them to infuse for two hours - that's allthe necessary components will go into the compote finally.

Real Uzvar

To be extremely precise in terms, uzvar is not an ordinary decoction of dried apples and pears. It should include in sufficient quantities "noble" ingredients like raisins and dried apricots. Before cooking dried fruits, apple and pear drying should be soaked for a quarter of an hour in warm water to equalize their cooking time with that required for more “delicate” components. It is these components that are sent to boiling water first; a quarter of an hour later they are joined by apricots with prunes, and five minutes later - raisins or dried apricots. Almost immediately, the uzvar can be removed from the fire. It is worth noting that it will become most saturated after insisting in warmth (but without heating, just in a non-cold room) for several hours.

Useful and enjoyable supplements

It is important not only how to cook dried fruits correctly, but also how to supplement them in order to increase the usefulness of the resulting compote. Firstly, it is not necessary to use sugar for sweetening - you can add figs, dates or dried bananas to the fruit. Secondly, it would be nice to put a handful of wild rose to the uzvar: in addition to all its undoubted useful qualities, it brings some light astringency to the drink. Thirdly, to refresh and increase tone, you can lower lime and mint leaves into a hot drink for a quarter of an hour. It is better to do this in a tea strainer or gauze to make it easier to extract:overexposed herbs spoil the taste of compote.