Our New Year traditions are a fluffy beauty-tree, tangerines, the film “Irony of Fate” and, of course, a huge amount refreshments harvested by housewives in industrial volumes. Russian salad, herring under a fur coat, aspic for several holidays travel from the fridge to the table and back. How to save them freshness so as not to overshadow the long-awaited food holidays poisoning read in the material .
In Russia, they begin to prepare dishes for the New Year’s table as usually a few days before the long-awaited holiday. AT in most cases this is justified: working women remain too little time to prepare treats. Therefore it turns out that many New Year’s dishes prepared on December 29-30, They are eaten on January 2-3.
In order not to present problems with digestion, preparing a treat for a feast, you need to follow a number rules that will allow you to keep dishes fresh at the maximum possible time.
Contents
We clean the refrigerator
Start preparing for the holiday feast by cleaning in the fridge. Rinse it thoroughly with a soda solution, you can wipe all surfaces with water and lemon juice dissolved in it. This will not only eliminate odors: the less refrigerator bacteria, the better foods are stored in it.
The habit that passed on to us from the owners of old refrigerators Soviet-made – wait for the food to cool completely sending to the refrigerator. Modern technology is quite tolerant. to warm foods. Food is better preserved if it is cooled in the fridge. It’s easy to explain: pathogens begin to multiply actively at 35-37 degrees. Therefore no need cool foods at room temperature. Certainly not worth it sending hot food to the refrigerator, but warm, is perfectly acceptable. This will not damage household appliances and inhibit the development of bacteria.
The ideal container for storing food in the refrigerator is glass dishes with a lid (you can use food instead film).
Do not store foods that salads are supposed to be made from, next to raw meat and fish. In this case, the risk increases. infection by pathogenic microflora even harmless, at first glance, components.
Preparatory work
Organizing a Christmas table is a time-consuming process that takes away a lot of time, so many housewives try at least some part of the preparatory work to do in advance. It is quite permissible, however, so that cooked foods stay longer fresh, it is recommended to follow certain rules.
- Salad vegetables can be boiled in advance, or even better baked – so they last longer, and the taste will be more interesting. When vegetables cease to be hot, uncleaned put them in plastic bags, release air as much as possible close and refrigerate. At the right time, only cut them and mix.
- If there is a need to cut salad products in advance, lay out all components in separate containers, avoiding mixing. Close them on top with lids or food film and keep in the refrigerator. Before coming guests will not be labor quickly mix prepared ingredients.
- Sliced fruit to avoid darkening, sprinkle lemon juice.
Vegetable salads
Salads made from fresh vegetables are stored less. Total. Ideally, they should be prepared immediately before serve and eat right away. However, there are several nuances knowledge of which will allow a little extension of their shelf life.
- Rinse and dry thoroughly before cooking. components of the future salad. You should not even have a hint of the presence of moisture.
- The capacity in which it is supposed to mix the components of the dish, should be dry and cool. This rule applies to knives, forks and spoons used in the cooking process.
- If the serving is delayed a little, lay the bottom of the dishes paper towel. It is recommended to put it on top of finished dish, pressing lightly. The container itself needs to be wrapped with food film.
- If according to the recipe you need to add others to the vegetable salad ingredients (e.g. eggs), do it last, and better, just before serving.
- Vegetable salad dressing can also be prepared in advance. Store it in a separate refrigerator until serving. the dishes.
“Long-livers” among vegetable salads are those that made from pickled and pickled ingredients: they retain freshness for 36 hours.
Multicomponent Salads
Observe the main rule: adding dressings to such dishes, whether it’s a regular mayonnaise or a complex home-made sauce, should be made immediately before serving. Seasoned salads are not subject to storage.
- Some salads become tastier if some time refilled. In this case, it should be strictly calculate the amount of salad to be served so that refuel exactly the amount of food that will be eaten.
- It is advisable to add to salads immediately before serving only dressing, but also canned ingredients, for example, canned fish, pickles, peas or corn from cans.
- You cannot cut salad ingredients with the same knife and, to for example, meat for a hot dish.
In accordance with sanitary and epidemiological standards, multicomponent salads are stored in the refrigerator in an unfilled look no more than 18 hours, with dressing – 12 hours. For salads, cooked from fish and seafood, this period is reduced to 12 hours.
Jellied meat and aspic
Many housewives mistakenly consider the jelly dish a long storage and prepare it a few days before the celebration. In fact In fact, the optimal shelf life of gelled meat products (aspic, jellied, brawn) in the refrigerator for no more than 12 hours, from fish – no more than 24 hours.
You can extend their freshness by changing the traditional way cooking.
As a rule, housewives take apart cooked meat components. manually, then fill them with broth and cool. Bacteria move from hand to finished dish, accelerating spoilage of the product.
To extend the good quality of aspic, after separation meat components (it is better to use a knife and fork, rather than hands) they should be filled with broth, bring to a boil and boil a little. Only after that the blank for the future jelly is poured over trays.
Garlic and onions added to harden will shorten shelf life. such dishes. Serve all the spicy seasonings separately with serving.
Sausage slicing
After the New Year’s Eve, as a rule, there are many sliced sausages of different grades.
- No need to cut in advance all the meat in the refrigerator delicacies. They rarely eat completely and often play a role. table decorations.
- Sort the remaining slices from the feast. Boiled cooked smoked sausage and ham should be separated from raw smoked and dried products. If the latter can be wrapped in sliced form into parchment paper and store a few more days, then boiled the delicacies that stood the night at the festive table are better not to eat. Put boiled-smoked products in a container with cover and take it soon.
- Uncooked sausage delicacies free from factory packaging, grease the cut edge with refined vegetable oil and wrap in parchment.
Throw away without hesitation.
A very common situation: the salad was held at the festive the table all New Year’s Eve, then it was placed in the refrigerator to to eat in the morning of January 1 and treat friends who have looked at guests.
Such situations are a headache for gastroenterologists and paramedics Ambulance forced to work in heavy duty in holidays.
- Salads seasoned with sauces and standing for long hours at room temperature, no storage, no matter how bad send them to the bin. By the morning of January 1 from table decoration they turn into a time bomb due to the active reproduction of pathogenic microflora in them. Especially dangerous in this plan fish salads.
- To understand how fresh a salad is, use a spoon move part of it to the side. If a dry bottom is found, the dish can be considered fresh. The presence of released fluid indicates that the dish began to deteriorate, and place it in the bin.
- It is unacceptable to mix with the remains of the contents of salad bowls, Standing night on the table, fresh ingredients from the fridge.
- Do not place salads in containers resembling basins, trying to impress guests with hospitality. The best option – from the very start celebrations to keep the main strategic food supply in refrigerator, replenishing salad bowls as needed.
Do not devote New Year holidays to eating spoiled food, which is a pity to throw away. Product deficit these days missing, and at any time can be purchased in the near supermarket necessary components for holiday dishes. Let the main the motto of your feast will be freshness!
Tatyana Koroleva
Keywords:
- New Year’s table
- New Year
