Cooking black and red currant sauce for meat

Sweet and sour currant sauce is not only a tasty additive to meat dishes, but also an effective means to improve digestion.Even an inexperienced cook will cope with its preparation, and the taste will invariably please with piquancy and refinement.

Currant has a rich vitamin and mineral composition. It contains large amounts of vitamins C - it is more in the black berry, A (the content in red currants is superior to other varieties), as well as E, D, B.

Among the vital minerals found in the berry, it is worth noting potassium (currant in its quantity even “overtakes” banana), magnesium, phosphorus, as well as zinc, copper and others. The sour taste of the berries is due to the presence of ascorbic acid and organic acids. The bright color is anthocyanin, and the strong blackcurrant aroma is essential oils.

Finally, both types of berries contain pectin, dietary fiber, phytoncides.

Traditionally, currants are used to make jams, jams, compotes - in a word, sweet drinks and desserts. However, the sweet and sour taste of berries perfectly complements the taste of meat, relieves it of dryness.

Acids, dietary fibers and pectins in the dish facilitate the process of digesting quite heavy foods — meat. Improves gastric secretion, intestinal peristalsis, accelerates metabolism and lipid metabolism, which allows you to get rid of the unpleasant symptoms that often appear after a rich feast and heavy food. In short, currant sauce is a meat supplement that is tasty and useful for digestion. It can be served fresh or rolled into jars for the winter.

The sauce is moderately thick due to the content of pectins, so additional thickeners in the form of flour and, especially, gelatin are not required. For the best manifestation of the gelling properties, sugar is added to the berry (it also helps regulate acidity), and for full disclosure of the flavors of all the ingredients, salt.

Both fresh and frozen berries are suitable for preparing the sauce. The degree of its maturity is very important, because the unripe currant makes the sauce too sour. Overripe (berries hanging on bushes from 2 weeks) are prone to fermentation, and also lose most of their useful components. If the currant is grown personally, then the optimal time of its collection - immediately after darkening or reddening and the next week.

Do not use rotten or cracked peel berries in the sauce. Despite the fact that they will fray, damage to the skin means the presence of pathogenic flora inside the berries.

Berries are usually plucked and frozen on the hands, but before cooking the sauce, all the sticks, stems, leaves should be cut off, and the berries should be well washed.

Fresh black berries can be cooked for 3 days after picking, keeping them in the refrigerator. If the currant sauce is made from red berries, then it is better to do this immediately after picking, because there are bacteria on its surface that cause fermentation. The longer the berry remains unprocessed, especially when it is warm, the more active the bacteria multiply.

In addition to the preparation of currants, you need to choose the right dish. Due to the high acidity of currants should be prepared in an enamel saucepan to avoid oxidation of the sauce. It is convenient to use a saucepan for this - its thick bottom and walls do not allow the sauce to burn. To grind and mix the dish should not metal, and wooden devices.

This meat sauce is made of red currant. Berry is combined with fragrant seasoning, which gives it a special richness and delicious aroma. The important point - in this recipe uses dried dill. Replacing it with fresh is impossible. You can control the amount of red pepper in the composition, but it is not recommended to completely exclude it from the recipe - the dish will lose a lot.

Red currant Fragrant Sauce:

• 2 kg of red currant;
• 1 glass of sugar and boiled water;
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped dried dill;
• 3-4 heads of garlic;
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander;
• 1 teaspoon hot pepper and salt.

Prepared (cleaned, washed) berries are poured in advance with water and boiled for about 10 minutes until juice starts to appear. After that, the composition is slightly cooled and fray through a sieve. It should be so small that only juice and flesh without stones and peels pass.

After that, the sauce is boiled over very low heat for about 30-40 minutes with the addition of sugar. Gradually, it will begin to thicken, 5-10 minutes before the sauce is removed from the fire, salt. Do not allow the boiling of the dish, otherwise it may not thicken.

Add the remaining seasoning, crushed garlic into the mixture and put it on the stove to put out another 5-7 minutes.

If the previous sauce is suitable for both fresh consumption and canning (preservatives are acids and sugar), then the dish according to the following recipe is best eaten fresh. In its composition there is mint, which has a fairly pronounced bright taste, so the amount is better to regulate on their own. The sauce should not turn into peppermint, that is, the taste of currants should still dominate.

Summer sauce for red currant meat:

• a glass of red currant;
• 1 onion;
• a bunch of mint (preferably fresh, but suitable and dried);
• 5 peas black pepper and clove asterisks;
• 2-3 tablespoons of sugar;
• tablespoon butter.

In a pan, melt the butter, add a little (about 50 ml) of water to it, then add sugar. Constantly stirring the mixture, you need to ensure that the sugar is completely dissolved in the liquid.

As soon as this happens, washed berries and spices should be sent to the pan. Wait until the composition begins to bubble, then cover with a lid and leave to stew. The fire at this time should be quite strong. Berries should begin to burst and start to juice.

At this time, add chopped onion to the dish. You can use universal yellow or a more delicate white. But from the use of red in this sauce is better to refuse. When the onions become transparent, the sauce is removed from the heat and left under the lid for another quarter of an hour. Then it is served or pre-mastered using a blender.

Berries are well combined not only with herbs and spices, but also with some vegetables. For example, the tandem of black currant and tomatoes in a dish according to the following recipe surprises with its harmonious taste and rich color.

Black currant sauce and tomato paste:

• 250 g of black currant;
• 150 grams of tomato paste;
• bunch of cilantro or parsley;
• 2-3 cloves of garlic;
• salt, pepper, ground coriander.

The cooking process is extremely simple. It is necessary to grind and beat all ingredients with a blender. You need to start with greens and garlic, and then enter the berries. When the mixture becomes homogeneous, add pasta, salt, spices, then again beat with a blender. Before serving, cool the sauce for an hour.

The following dish is intended to be stored for a long time. If you try it immediately, it will not taste very good. This is due to the fact that the ingredients do not have time to soak in each other, and the taste of each of them will be felt too sharp.

But it is worth opening a jar of such sauce in a couple of weeks to make sure that it is elegant and harmonious. Due to the presence of vinegar, the composition is stored 10-12 months in the cellar or refrigerator.

Canned sauce:

• 2 kg of red currant;
• 1 glass of vinegar (9%);
• 1 kg of sugar;
• 1 teaspoonful of black ground and allspice;
• half a teaspoon ground cinnamon;
• 1.5 teaspoons ground cloves;
• a pinch of salt (for a stronger taste of the sauce).

Berries need to grind through a sieve to obtain a homogeneous seed gruel and peel. Heat the resulting composition on the fire, inject sugar and wait for it to dissolve completely. After that, enter all the remaining ingredients, then stirring constantly, stir the sauce on the fire for about an hour. It is important not to allow it to boil.

Turn off the dish and immediately pour in the vinegar, mix everything thoroughly and roll it up in hot jars.

Black currant, unlike red, has less acid, more neutral in taste. That is why black currant is more suitable for making hot sauce. This savory supplement is best combined with pork.

Spicy sauce:

• 500 g of black currant;
• glass of water;
• 100 g of sugar;
• hot chili peppers;
• a teaspoon of sweet paprika and ground coriander;
• ground black pepper and salt to taste.

Pour currants with water and extinguish until soft, then rub through a sieve. The resulting juice and puree return to the fire, add sugar and boil until it is completely dissolved. Chili free from film and seeds, finely chopped, add to the sauce, add spices and cook another 5-7 minutes.

The sauce can be additionally whipped with a blender to grind the pepper. Although a small heterogeneity of ingredients brings new flavor notes in the dish, adding spice to it.

As already mentioned, most sauces can be served either immediately after cooking, or rolled up in cans for the winter. In the latter case, be sure to boil the dish well and for a long time, to introduce into its composition a sufficient amount of sugar and vinegar, which are preservatives.

If the dish is served immediately after cooking or involves storing in the refrigerator for no more than a week, then the amount of vinegar can be reduced or replaced with apple and wine. This will make the sauce taste more tender.

If the sauce is immediately served at the table, it must be pre-cooled. When preserved, the dish is laid out hot in banks. The latter must be sterilized.

In the last stage of canning, the dish does not need to be turned over, since upon contact of the acidic sauce with the metal, an oxidation of the dish may also occur.

Store the sauce in the refrigerator or cellar. It is convenient to use for this small containers to eat the sauce for 1-2 times. If you subject the sauce to minimal heat treatment, in order to preserve more vitamin C, it is useful to know that it is also destroyed when in contact with air.

This means that the cooked dish should be immediately sealed (roll up the lid or use a closing container when cooled).

They usually serve the dish in a special dish - a sauce-pan, which is placed on the table. Everyone wants to pour the dish at their discretion to the meat. You can serve it in smaller portions of sauce, then the dishes are put to each guest. The mistress pours the sauce into portion sauceboats, and a large common saucepan is put on the table so that you can add the sauce from it into portion dishes.

Finally, if the meat is served on a large tray (for example, a baked and sliced ​​piece), you can immediately pour it with the sauce. The best decoration would be leaves of rosemary, mint or thyme, as well as currant tassels.

Currant sauce can be used as a marinade composition. It is enough to rub meat with it (usually a glass of sauce is taken for 1-1.5 kg of meat) and leave for several hours, or better for the night.

To learn how to cook red currant sauce for meat, see the next video.