Fresh storage
Fresh leaves can remain in the refrigerator for up to 8 days. Every day they lose their vitamins, but continue to be nutritious and healthy. The sooner you eat a vegetable, the better it will be. Young leaves make salads, sauces and other seasonings. Spinach retains a bright green color even after heat treatment, which gives dishes an unusual, but quite appetizing look. If the leaves are overgrown and gorchat, they are scalded with boiling water, fried and stewed.
Spinach grows very quickly, so it is easy to grow on the windowsill and on the backyard. Cut the leaves young and immediately cook dishes from them.
If you bought spinach on the market or in a supermarket, you should keep it in the fridge in the vegetable compartment, and wash it only before use. You can put it in a special plastic container or wrap it in a plastic bag, making several holes in the bag for ventilation. Instead of a package, use a damp kitchen towel or cotton napkin. Bought in vacuum-packed spinach open only before cooking. Vacuum allows you to store a vegetable much longer.
Freezing
To make harvesting for the winter, spinach is frozen. This process presents no difficulties:
- Wash the leaves in running water.
- Throw away yellowish and rotted leaves.
- Cut off the leaves, cut the leaves with transverse stripes of 1-2 cm thickness.
- Put the spinach in a colander and boil it over so that the leaves are blanched.
- Allow to drain and cool.
- Spread out into packages or containers.
- Send to the freezer. If there is a “quick freeze” mode, then first turn it on, and then put the freezer into normal operation.
Frozen spinach can be stored for about a year. It is added to cheese and cottage cheese casseroles, make spinach pies, sauces, cutlets, eaten with a boiled egg.
Sometimes young leaves will ice without pre-blanching and cutting. But later, after thawing, such spinach will be difficult to cut.
Mashed
At home spinach can be mashed and frozen in this form. This will use the vegetable at any time of the year. It will be enough to defrost it and add it to the dish that you decided to cook. No additional processing is necessary.
After washing and sorting out the leaves, they are boiled in salted water for 3-5 minutes. Then take out a slotted spoon or recline in a colander, doused with cold water and allowed to drain. Boiled spinach becomes soft. It is ground by hand or with a blender to form a uniform mashed potatoes.Spinach mashed potatoes are simmered over low heat in a saucepan or stew-pan until it becomes thick. To mash is not burned, it is stirred. Then remove from heat, allow to cool, lay out in sterile jars and cover with a lid. Store such a product should be in the refrigerator. You can arrange the mashed potatoes in forms or in packages into thin flat cakes and freeze in the freezer.
Drying
Good food can be stored not only in the refrigerator. Like any other greens, spinach leaves are dried. Dry them in the open air or in a slightly heated oven. There are also electric dryers that are convenient to use, and they can accurately set the temperature.
Beforehand, you must rinse the leaves and lightly dry on a towel or just let them drain and cut off the tails. Then they are laid out in a thin layer on a baking sheet and put up in the sun, covering with gauze on top so that dust and flies do not sit down.
In the oven or electric drier, spinach is dried at a temperature of about 45 °.After 3-4 hours it can be packaged in banks and boxes. Dried vegetable takes up little space and is very convenient to use. Dried spinach should be stored in a shaded and dry place.
Salting
Salt storage is an old-fashioned method that can be applied to many products and can be applied to spinach. Clean leaves are cut into strips or torn by hand into pieces, then placed in a jar, sprinkled with salt. Per kilogram of green leaves will need to take a third cup of large sodium non-iodized salt. As you lay the spinach, it must be heavily tamped.
You can immediately chop the leaves with salt in a large bowl and then fill the jar with them. The jar must be clean, sterilized. Salted spinach is stored in a cool place for 1-2 months.
