Hawthorn refers to medicinal plants, widely used in folk recipes in the fight against diseases of the cardiovascular system. You can save its fruits for a long time in different ways.
How best to store hawthorn?
Most often, the fruits of hawthorn freeze or dry. In any of these storage options, the fruits must first be prepared - to collect completely ripe berries (bright red or orange), sort through the collected material, remove the damaged berries.
After collection it is undesirable to procrastinate with the treatment. Hawthorn should be washed under running water, get wet with a cotton towel and spread a thin layer on fabric or parchment for complete drying.
If you are going to dry berries, then leave them in the unfolded form for several days, periodically turning over. You can use special dryers for berries, mushrooms and herbs. They need to set the temperature of + 40ºС ... + 60ºС. Alternatively, you can use a conventional oven, heated to a temperature of + 40 ° C. During the drying process, the door must remain open.
Determine that the dried fruits can be in this way: take a handful of hawthorn and squeeze into a fist. When you open your hand, the fruit should be easily separated from each other and not glued together.
The next question will be - in what store the dried hawthorn? You can use glass containers with a sealed cover so that even the slightest moisture and pests do not get inside. The hawthorn storage room must be dry and well ventilated. The banks with dry hawthorn should not get sun, and the temperature should be about +10 ... +18ºС.
Can I store the hawthorn in the freezer?
Another common way how to store hawthorn for the winter is to freeze it. In this form, berries retain all their useful properties and, like dried hawthorn , can be used for making compotes, infusions, medicinal tea.
Freeze hawthorn in plastic containers, placing them in a freezer with a temperature of -18 ° C. In addition to whole berries, this way is also stored mashed potatoes from hawthorn, obtained with the help of a meat grinder or stupa with a pestle.
How to store hawthorn berries with sugar for the winter?
Something middle between fresh berries and jam is the hawthorn, wiped with sugar - the so-called raw jam. To do this, you need to rinse and dry berries, remove pits, rinse with pestle, then add sugar at the rate of 700 g per 1 kg of berries and mix well.
Fill the jars with the resulting mashed potatoes, cover them with a 5-7 cm layer of sugar and cover with gauze or plastic lids. In the refrigerator, the hawthorn harvested in this way will stand for 2-3 months.