How to store cauliflower: freezing, bookmarking, souring?

Cauliflower is rich in vitamins, trace elements and carbohydrates, but all these components are contained only in the seasonal product. If you know how to store cauliflower, you can use it throughout the year to make healthy and tasty dishes. It is worth considering that the greenhouse analogues of the product are practically useless. They can not be used for complementary foods, they will not be of use to people suffering from diabetes, atherosclerosis, liver and gastrointestinal diseases. Blanks should be handled on time and carried out correctly. It is not enough to store the heads in the fridge, they need to be processed accordingly.

Preparing cauliflower for harvesting for the winter

For vegetables for the winter, it's best to use vegetables grown on their own. In this case, the harvesting process can be checked and the preparatory stages can be carried out qualitatively:

• Wet heads are not subject to long-term storage, so harvesting is carried out in warm, dry weather. Ripened cabbage loses a significant part of useful components, so it is better to collect it a little before the time and self-ripening.
• Inflorescences need to be collected correctly - with the leaves covering them, it is impossible to leave them in the sun, from the ultraviolet cabbage it will quickly turn yellow and become unusable. In some cases, the vegetable is excavated along with the root.

Tip: If cabbage is supposed to be stored in winter, do not feed the soil with nitrogen fertilizers. From such care, the vegetable spoils faster, even if all conditions are met.

• Fresh product should be slightly dried( can be outdoors, but under a thin cloth) and immediately proceed with the bookmarks.

Correctly carried out the preparatory phase, ensures the preservation of the maximum amount of vitamins and trace elements in the vegetable. This is especially important if the product is planned to prepare mashed potatoes for a child or diet dishes.

How to properly store the product in a cellar or basement?

Despite the obvious tenderness of vegetable inflorescences, there are many ways to store cauliflower. If there is such an opportunity, it is better not to do it in the apartment, but in a cold room with good ventilation and no signs of dampness. The best option for this would be a cellar or a cellar.

• At the head, we cut off the stump and most of the leaves. We put inflorescences in boxes lined with film. Between the vegetables we leave gaps for ventilation. We cover the containers with a dark opaque film and set it in a room with a humidity of 85-90% and a temperature of 0. . + 2ºС.
• Completely remove all leaves and root, the heads are wrapped in polyethylene and folded into boxes.
• Each plug is wrapped with food film, creating vacuum conditions and storing in a suitable dark place.
• Cabbage with the root is released from the lower leaves, and the upper we cover the inflorescence and bind the head with a rope. The roots are placed in clean sand, packaged in boxes. This bed should be covered with opaque film and set in a room with a temperature of 4-6 ° C.This is the best way to ripen cabbage.
• You can hang the heads over the sticks, but the vegetables should not touch each other.
• The heads, completely peeled off from the roots and leaves, are placed one by one into the nets, which we hang under the ceiling.
• Cleaned cabbage heads with a pair of leaves wrapped in newspapers and folded into plastic bags with holes. From time to time, packets need to be changed, especially if condensation accumulates on them.

In the absence of a cellar and a cellar, you can use the balcony. Before storing cauliflower in an apartment, you need to make sure that you can create the conditions described above.

How can I store cauliflower in a refrigerator or freezer?

In an extreme case, inflorescence of cauliflower can be stored in the refrigerator, however, they take a lot of places. We clean the heads from the stunts and yellow leaves, wrap them in food film and put them into vegetable trays. The variant with the newspaper and the package is also suitable, but the vegetables will have to be checked regularly, changing the wrapper.

In addition, you will have to constantly clean the heads of rotting leaves, cut off darkened inflorescences, monitor the temperature in the refrigerator and regularly ventilate the room in which the unit is located.

Cauliflower can be frozen, only it needs to be done correctly:

1. Cleaned and washed head is disassembled into separate inflorescences, boil them no more than five minutes.
2. Throw the vegetables in a colander, wait until the water drains. Dry directly in the functional device or lay out on paper towels.
3. We pack the product on plastic bags or containers, freeze in an accelerated mode. From time to time, it is recommended that the container be shaken so that the elements do not stick together into one large piece. It is allowed to pack the vegetables in portions.

Fresh cabbage can be frozen, in this case, the cooking phase is excluded. But with this approach, the risk of spoilage of the vegetable is much higher, and its taste after defrosting will be slightly different from the usual. Repeated freezing of cabbage is inadmissible.

During storage, you need to monitor the quality of the products in the tab, throwing out corrupted heads as necessary or cutting out rotten inflorescences. Elements with traces of spoilage should be stored separately from the others and used first.