The season when the sorrel is fresh and young is quite short (about two weeks). The fact is that after him the quality of sorrel becomes worse and the leaves become rasping. But you need to consider that the seeds of this plant can be planted for a long time in the summer.
In our country, traditional dishes are green cabbage soup. And how sometimes you want to try this dish in the winter. This is possible if the sorrel can be preserved in cans, but it can also be frozen. Frozen sorrel can not be compared with canned, as in the frozen form all vitamins and other necessary substances are preserved, and also the taste qualities of the sponge are not lost. In addition, you can easily cook frozen sorrel with cut or whole leaves, and the presence of leaves is very much appreciated in green cabbage soup. Consider how to freeze sorrel.
Correct freezing of sorrel
For freezing, wild-growing sorrel can be used, but it is preferable to use sorrel, since its leaves are larger and more tender. Freeze sorrel should be in the period until the plant does not begin to form arrows. Before you freeze such a useful plant, you need to work hard.
Initially, the sorrel should be thoroughly rinsed. This requires a large container of water, since sorrel is too polluted with earth and grains of sand. Water is needed for such a procedure a lot, so that the grains of sand on the bottom of the dishes have settled. After large washed leaves need to be cut across into small pieces (about 4 centimeters). It is necessary that in the prepared dish there are no long and strong leaf veins. If the leaves are small, then they should not be cut.
After this, it is necessary to slightly blanch the sorrel - put it into boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Water for blanching a lot is not necessary. When you change the color of the leaves, sorrel quickly needs to be removed from the water in order to preserve the maximum of valuable substances. The color in boiling water at the appliance changes from green to dark olive. The color changes because the acid that is present in this plant, when heated, combines with chlorophyll. As a result, the green chlorophyre is converted to olive pheophytin. Sorrel, extracted from boiling water, should be placed in a colander, to completely water the glass from it.
In blanched sorrel it is easy to see leaves of various extraneous herbaceous plants. If you do not remove foreign plants before blanching, they must be removed after it. They will stand out due to the fact that they will differ in color, because they do not contain acid and will not become olive at boiling. It is necessary to extract them, as the dish cooked with them will be bitter or taste qualities will change completely.
After that, the sorrel can be decomposed into special containers or packed in sachets. When packaging, make sure that you get a minimum of air in the container. Then sorrel gently put in the freezer.
How to store and prepare frozen sorrel
When storing, care should be taken to ensure that the sorrel is not thawed. If, for some reason, it is thawed, then it should be used immediately for food. Frozen such a product is desirable to use for 8 months. Dishes from spices will be very useful at the end of winter and in the spring, when we lack so much useful substances and various vitamins.
In order to prepare green cabbage soup from frozen sorrel, it is impossible to defrost this product in advance, as during defrosting the valuable qualities of any plant are lost. It is necessary to immediately put in the boiling water frozen sorrel, then the "valuable gift" of nutrients is provided to you. Another nuance - to freeze sorrel should be small portions, so that it is enough for one pan, as the remaining product will have to be thrown away.