Vinegar adds flavor to many dishes. For example, a salad with cabbage and carrots is fresh in itself. And if you add vinegar, it turns out very tasty. But how to replace vinegar if it suddenly was not at hand?
Salads
For the preparation of light salads, vinegar can be replaced with lemon juice. This is both healthier and less likely to oversour. If there is no lemon at hand, then you can add a pinch citric acid. But then you need to mix the ingredients thoroughly so that it doesn’t happen that you have all the acid in one place.
conservation
Many are wondering what can replace vinegar during conservation. Citric acid will help you here too. A three-liter jar usually needs a teaspoon. If you have other volumes, then proceed from the proportion of 5: 2. That is, 100 g of vinegar can be replaced with 40 g of citric acid.
Sushi
In order to cook rice for sushi, you need to add special vinegar to it. Thanks to him, it becomes softer, does not stick to hands so much during cooking and gives sushi a sharpness. But how to replace rice vinegar and not spoil the dish?
You can replace sushi vinegar by making a mixture of regular vinegar, salt, and sugar. To do this, in a third of a glass of ordinary table vinegar 9%, add 2 tablespoons of sugar and one and a half teaspoons of salt. The whole mixture must be thoroughly stirred until the salt and sugar are completely dissolved.
In principle, rice vinegar can be replaced with ordinary, but more gentle varieties. For example, apple or wine vinegar. Rice vinegar differs from ordinary vinegar only in its softness and not so rich concentration. Therefore, using other varieties, it is worth slightly reducing the dose.
When preparing rolls or sushi, take a container of water and lemon juice and constantly moisten your hands in it. Thanks to this, the rice will not stick to your hands, and the nori will be better fixed.
Balsamic vinegar
Despite the fact that balsamic vinegar is used in many recipes, the original product is very expensive. The preparation of vinegar takes about 10 or even more years. This leaves 85% of the vinegar, which significantly affects the price. But by learning how to replace balsamic vinegar, you can save money and get almost the same quality.
There are younger balsamic vinegars that are less intense in flavor and color. They are much cheaper, so they are quite suitable as a replacement.
You can also make your own with regular wine vinegar. To do this, add fragrant herbs of lemon balm, chamomile, lavender and mint to it and let it brew for about a week.
Bon appetit and new culinary exploits!
Vinegar is an indispensable product for home canning. However, to give vegetables a light spicy taste and preserve them as much as possible beneficial features only high-quality vinegar can, so its choice must be approached very responsibly.
In canning, vinegar is used in order to better preserve food - acetic acid does not allow harmful bacteria to develop, and the workpieces do not deteriorate for a long time. In addition, vinegar gives canned foods a special piquant taste, for which home-made preparations are so valued. And what is the best vinegar to use in home canning?
Synthetic vinegar
You can see this product (by the way, it is always absolutely transparent and without sediment) on the shelves called acetic acid, essence, table vinegar. There is no need to be intimidated by the fact that this product is made from wood chips through complex chemical transformations. Subsequently, it undergoes a thorough cleaning and is quite suitable for food purposes.
Alcoholic (natural, biochemical) vinegar
For canning, it is preferable to use this particular vinegar, which is obtained as a result of acetic fermentation of alcohol-containing liquids, such as grape wine, cider, beer wort. For home-made preparations, one should stop at natural 9% alcohol vinegar, for the production of which grain ethyl alcohol is used. It is the same as synthetic, colorless and transparent. With it, the taste of your blanks will be softer.
Apple vinegar
Apple cider vinegar is obtained, like other fruit and berry vinegars, by fermentation apple juice by bacterial activity.
This natural product is actively used in cooking, but it is rarely used for canning (housewives are usually afraid that the jars will "explode"). It is necessary to distinguish between natural apple cider vinegar (useful for our body) and synthetic. First of all, you need to pay attention to the concentration - natural vinegar - 3-5% (not very acidic), and chemical vinegar - 9%. The next indicator that the product is natural is that there should be a small amount of brownish sediment at the bottom of the container. The composition will be written on the bottle of synthetic vinegar: 9% acetic acid, apple flavor, dyes.
Wine (grape) vinegar
The most ancient is wine vinegar, which at first was a by-product of winemaking ("sour" wine). Such vinegar, depending on the grape variety used, is red and white. It can be used in canning (however, it turns out a little expensive), and in salads, and in hot dishes. This natural product contains a whole bunch of useful trace elements and vitamins.
What to replace?
The use of vinegar in food (and, accordingly, in canning) should be limited to people suffering from gastritis with hyperacidity, peptic ulcer, pancreatitis, liver and kidney diseases in the acute stage. A useful substitute for vinegar for canning can be the juice of red or white currants, cranberries, lingonberries. Usually 200 ml of juice is taken for 1 liter of water. So you can preserve cucumbers, zucchini and squash. You can acidify vegetables with lemon juice or citric acid, adding it to the marinade. Vegetables canned with citric acid are milder in taste and less irritating to the stomach lining. Usually, when canning, 0.5 tsp is added to 1 liter of filling. citric acid.
How to choose a good vinegar?
- To choose the right vinegar, be sure to read the composition of the product. It is better not to take a bottle on the label of which dyes, preservatives, flavors and other additives appear.
- Don't be afraid of sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Its presence also indicates naturalness. Synthetic products, as a rule, do not have sediment.
- Pay attention to the expiration date as well. A natural product, depending on its composition, can be stored under certain conditions for no more than four years. Synthetic vinegar will not go bad even after five years or more.
- When choosing vinegar, keep in mind that a natural product may contain 5-9% acetic acid, but no more.
- Buy vinegar that is bottled in glass, because it does not last long in plastic containers.
Vinegar is a product that no housewife can do without in the kitchen. But many are afraid to use store-bought in the preparation of their dishes, fearing the preservatives that manufacturers add. And they often wonder if vinegar can be substituted.
Types of vinegar
First you need to figure out what types of vinegar are. The most common is synthetic or, as it is also called, table, which is most often used by housewives in cooking, as well as in canning and baking. Rarely used natural types of this product.
Natural ones include apple, wine, balsamic, rice, cane, malt. Apple can be in liquid form, as well as in the form of tablets. Balsamic, which is extracted from grapes, is also called royal. Natural balsamic is an expensive product that is used exclusively for flavoring or marinating expensive varieties of fish and meat.
Wine is obtained by fermenting wine and is very often used by housewives in cooking as an alternative to white wine, but only with the addition of sugar. In European countries, rice has become widely known due to the hobby oriental cuisine especially sushi. Rice vinegar is also added to salads and in the preparation of various marinades and even drinks.
Reed - the most expensive and rare view vinegar, which is little used in cooking around the world. Often it is used by gourmets for cooking meat dishes. The malt is used mainly in British cuisine, particularly in puddings and soups.
How to replace table vinegar
Housewives love to use table vinegar when preserving various vegetables. But there are those who categorically reject its use and replace it with citric acid or natural juice to a greater extent.
In general, any vinegar can be replaced with citric acid, but if you want to get closer to the taste of the original product, then in this case you will have to try to find a worthy replacement.
What is the best substitute for apple cider vinegar in baking?
Apple cider vinegar, which is often used in baking, can be replaced with citric acid just like table cider vinegar. In addition to it, it can be replaced by this product with any fruit acid. As you know, vinegar in baking is used exclusively as a baking powder to extinguish soda. Therefore, as a substitute, in addition to fruit acid, any other baking powder purchased in the store can come to the rescue.
If we are talking about how to replace wine vinegar, then this is perhaps the easiest task. It can be replaced with any white or red wine, depending on which dish you need to add the desired ingredient to.
If replacement is necessary balsamic vinegar You need to consider the preparation of each dish separately. For example, salad or meat dishes instead, you can add the same citric acid diluted with water, or white wine with the addition of various spices.
How to replace rice vinegar
Rice sauce is always used to make sushi, and it is rarely replaced with a similar sauce. To prepare the sauce, you still have to resort to adding vinegar, even table vinegar. So, you need to take two tablespoons of its synthetic version, add 40 milliliters of soy sauce, a pinch of salt and sugar. The resulting mixture must be heated over low heat.
Therefore, we can conclude that it is not possible to replace rice vinegar with ingredients that do not use any other type of vinegar for making sushi.
So, when wondering what to replace vinegar with, try to use products that taste the most similar to the original.
Many grandmothers and experienced lovers of vitamins in jars advise "lemon", and this is a good option. But he's far from the only one! Looking for a substitute for vinegar in canning? I offer as many as six options - choose any!
Lemon acid
This method is suitable even for an apartment pantry. Experienced housewives add 1 teaspoon of acid to a three-liter jar (for example, tomatoes). Do you pour marinade over vegetables, draining it several times and bringing it to a boil? Add the acid immediately to the jars before pouring the marinade there last time and immediately roll up the workpiece with lids. And it is also believed that 2 tablespoons of citric acid replace 100 g of 9% vinegar.
Lemon juice
Most often, it is added instead of vinegar to salads - not those that go into jars, but those that are chopped immediately on the table. However, it is also added to canned cucumber-tomatoes - at the moment when vegetables prepared in sterile jars are poured with marinade for the last time. However, it is worth remembering: in terms of the degree of “anger” to microbes, such a remedy is inferior to vinegar, so storing these blanks does not take long, and preferably in the cellar (refrigerator).
Vodka
The classic way to preserve cucumbers or "drunk" tomatoes. On a large jar (3 liters), add 2 tablespoons of "fire water", and just before closing. The blank will turn out to be very “obedient”, it will even stand in the apartment. And by the way, the brine after such cucumbers and tomatoes, of course, will not hit the head, but as a hangover it will go many times better than aspirin
Red currant juice
A little-known, but very interesting way used by lovers of pickled cucumbers. And you don’t even need to press this juice - just pour currant berries from a jar of cucumbers, and then pour them with marinade, as you are used to. On average, a 3-liter jar takes about a glass of currants. After opening the jar, you can also taste the berries - they will marinate and go like an original snack.
The acidity of the vegetables themselves
Yes, experienced housewives assure that they cover tomatoes, sauces with sour plums without any vinegar at all - acid from the fruit compensates for it. And these jars are all winter! True, it is worth trying such preservation if you have a deep cellar. But in a warm apartment pantry, such a blank can “buck up” by inflating the lids.
Freeze
A great way to preserve salads without vinegar! Lecho, stewed beans or cabbage, as well as many other goodies will perfectly winter in your freezer in sealed bags (special freezers with a zip-lock fastener are best) or freezer vessels. Ready for kids? Be sure to try freezing! It will also help you if you don't like salad recipes with a lot of sugar (which also acts as a preservative).
I hope these tips will help you prepare the best and most useful preparations!
And bon appetit to your family in winter!