What can be cooked from honeysuckle?

Honeysuckle is a very useful berry, which is distinguished by its early ripening period, because some varieties of crops produce crops in late spring.Fruits can be eaten both in a natural form, and used for preparation of various dishes. This article will discuss what can be made from honeysuckle.

Honeysuckle is a shrub that is characterized by early fruiting and fast ripening of the crop. This culture can produce fruits as edible berries, and inedible - it depends on the plant variety. According to the taste characteristics of the fruit, they remotely resemble the taste of blueberries and blueberries.

Honeysuckle fruits have many useful properties, since their composition in large quantities includes vitamins and trace elements. Berry helps to deal with the problem of underweight, as it helps to improve appetite. Fruits also improve the work of the gastrointestinal tract.

Berries have diuretic properties, so they can be used to remove toxins and excess fluid from the body. Regular consumption of honeysuckle helps to improve the work of the cardiovascular system, as the berries are able to strengthen the walls of blood vessels. If you take honeysuckle with elevated pressure, then after a while it will return to normal.

In edible honeysuckle varieties there are practically no contraindications to use, as the berry does not contain harmful substances. However, the fruit can cause an allergic reaction in the form of a red skin rash. It is also not recommended to give the berry in its pure form to children under 5 years of age, since its use at an early age can cause an upset stomach.

Honeysuckle is widely used in cooking: desserts and drinks are made from it. You can also harvest berries for the winter simply by freezing them, drying or preserving them.

For the preparation of pastes whole honeysuckle berries are not needed - in this case only solid waste is used, which remains after squeezing the juice. Sugar and cake are taken in proportions of one to one, mixed and infused for a quarter of an hour. After that, the mixture must be rubbed through a sieve and put the resulting liquid mass on the stove.

With constant stirring, boil the mixture until it acquires the consistency of sour cream. Without cooling, the resulting mass must be laid out on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. The mixture is distributed in a thin layer.

Honeysuckle jelly is a delicious and healthy dessert that can be harvested for the winter or immediately eaten. There are options for making jelly with and without sugar. If the dessert is harvested for the winter, then thickeners, such as gelatin or agar-agar, are not additionally used for its preparation. In this case, for 2 liters of natural juice from the berries of honeysuckle take 1.6 kg of sugar. For making jelly for the winter, the juice is mixed with sugar and boiled after boiling until the amount of the mixture decreases 3 times the initial amount. When cooking jelly, it is important to continuously mix the mass. The resulting product immediately after preparation is placed in pre-sterilized jars and twisted with iron lids.

To make jelly without sugar, you will need 20 g of gelatin, 1 l of water and an additional 160 ml, 1 l of juice from the honeysuckle berries. Gelatin is dissolved in cold boiled water (160 ml) and allowed to swell. Swelling time can be from 10 to 40 minutes - it depends on the type of gelatin. More accurate instructions for thickener dilution can be found on the packaging. Juice must be mixed with water and heated on the stove. Swollen gelatin is added to the hot mixture and mixed until dissolved. The jelly mass is brought to a boil, after which the pan can be removed from the stove and the mixture poured into molds for solidification. If the jelly will be twisted for the winter in banks, it is better to boil the mixture after boiling for another 3 minutes.

If the house has such a technique as a dryer for food, then this will be the easiest way to dry the berries. Subtleties drying honeysuckle using such a device depends on the model device.

Detailed recommendations are listed in the instructions, but the total process is described below.

• Berries are sorted, thoroughly washed, laid out on a paper towel and allowed to dry. To speed up the drying process, it is recommended to make several punctures with a needle or toothpick on each fruit.
• Honeysuckle is distributed to the sections of the dryer, after which the temperature is set to no more than 55 degrees.
• It can take a lot of time to dry berries (up to 12 hours) - this depends on the quality of the fruit and the dryer. Every 1-2 hours it is necessary to turn off the device for 2 minutes and change pallets with berries in places.

The second variant of dried honeysuckle is the use of a conventional oven in this process. Pure berry spread on a baking sheet, covered with parchment paper, and placed in an oven, preheated to a temperature of 45 degrees. In the process of drying the first 2 hours for the berries need to constantly monitor. If the fruit gives too much juice, which does not have time to evaporate in the oven, it is necessary to remove the pan from the oven, drain the liquid and change the parchment on a dry sheet.

On the plot you can dry the berry in a natural way in the sun. To do this, find a well ventilated and sunny place and place the berry on a tray covered with parchment. It is recommended to turn the fruit twice a day. Honeysuckle can be protected from contamination with gauze. Under favorable weather conditions, the dried berry will be ready on the fourth day. Favorable conditions in this case is hot, dry, sunny and windy weather.

Smoothies are a mixture of berries, fruits or vegetables, which are blended until smooth. The special advantage of such a cocktail is that fresh ingredients are used for its preparation without prior cooking. To prepare a drink, it is not necessary to follow some strict recipe - you can prepare smoothies from the components at your discretion. In this case, it is important that they are well combined with each other.

To prepare a cocktail with honeysuckle, you can mix the following products:

• 300 g fresh strawberries;
• 300 grams of honeysuckle berries;
• 300 ml of natural white yogurt;
• 1 banana;
• 1 Kiwi

Prepare a smoothie will not be particularly difficult. Fruits and berries need to be washed and cleaned. Banana and kiwi must be cut into small pieces. All products are placed in a bowl for whipping and crushed to a homogeneous mass using a blender.

In addition to the usual sweets, from the honeysuckle can cook a rather unusual dish that does not apply to desserts. Berry sauce will be an original addition to meat and fish dishes.

There are two options for making this dressing. In both cases, the sauce can be eaten immediately after preparation or closed in cans for long-term storage.

For the first method of preparation will require ½ kg of honeysuckle. Berries need to be washed and combined with tomato paste (350 g).

The following components are also added to the mass:

• ground black pepper to taste;
• four peeled garlic cloves;
• chopped parsley, cilantro and dill;
• If you wish, you can add a little sugar, because the sauce can be quite sour.

The resulting mixture must be crushed with a blender until smooth. The finished product can be eaten immediately. If it is necessary to close the sauce in cans for long-term storage, then it is additionally cooked on the stove about 5 minutes after boiling.

The second method of cooking involves cooking the sauce on the stove. To do this, ½ kg of washed berries should be kneaded with 4 large spoons of granulated sugar and rubbed through a sieve. To the resulting mass is added chopped ginger root (2 small pieces) and 6 cloves of garlic.

The mixture must be cooked in an enamel saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly. When the mass begins to boil, it is poured into it dissolved in water, potato starch. Two tablespoons of starch are pre-diluted in 100 ml of cold water. After adding the starch, the sauce is still boiled for 2 minutes, then removed from the heat.

Morse is an excellent tool to strengthen the immune system. To prepare a drink from honeysuckle, 500 g of berries are taken for 2 liters of water. Sugar is added to taste, but it is advisable to put no more than 10 tablespoons.

First of all, the fruits should be washed well, sifted for the presence of spoiled berries and removed from the surface all contamination. Clean berries must be ground through a sieve to get the juice. If the honeysuckle is poorly wiped, you can hold the berries a little in hot boiled water.

The resulting juice must be removed in the refrigerator, and the solid waste berries placed in a saucepan and pour water. The mixture must be boiled within 7 minutes after the start of boiling. The resulting broth must be insisted for 20 minutes under a closed lid. After the specified time, the mixture is filtered.

The cake from the berries is no longer needed, and it can be used for further processing, and granulated sugar is diluted in the resulting liquid. The decoction should stand for some time to cool. When the juice has cooled to room temperature, it is added to the previously squeezed juice, stirred and removed to cool in the refrigerator. Those who like a drink in the form of heat can drink juice without cooling immediately.

To learn how to make a delicious honeysuckle jam, see the next video.