Apple is a universal fruit. It is dried and fermented (i.e. soaked) to make preserves, jams, marmalades and marshmallows; apples are suitable for salads and as a side dish for fatty meat or poultry; They are used in a wide variety of baked goods. . Those who watch their figure bake cinnamon apples in the oven, while those who are not afraid of calories try to make the softest apple Charlotte.
“There are more than two dozen drinks prepared from the pulp of this fruit – compotes, apple juice, jelly, kvass, cider, wine, Calvados, etc.,” says culinary teacher Sergei Gavrilin. said.
But for each apple dish you should choose a specific variety. Kitchen Explorer Alexey Onegin He believes that there are several parameters that can be used to understand whether the fruit variety you have is suitable for the chosen recipe: acidity and sweetness, strength of aroma, darkening speed and others.
salad
For salad, it is important how quickly the apple darkens. “Varieties that do not darken for a long time will look better in salads and other dishes that are not subjected to heat treatment. But by sprinkling lemon juice on the surface of the apple, you will protect it from oxidation in any case,” Onegin explained to socialbites.ca.
Gavrilin expressed the opinion that it is most appropriate to use apples with White filling to prepare the salad.
Waldorf Salad. classic recipe
A classic salad in which apples remain a necessary ingredient (and indisputable – as in Olivier or Herring under a fur coat). The quick and simple recipe dates back to the 1890s in America: according to historians, that’s when the Waldorf Hotel began serving the dish invented by Swiss-born Oskar Szczyrki.
To prepare the original Waldorf salad, you need to cut the apples into thin slices, mix them with finely chopped celery stalks and mayonnaise and put it all on top of the lettuce salad. Over the years, changes have been made to the recipe – today walnuts and even blue cheese are added to it.
Mother tongue
Onegin recommends paying attention to sour fruit varieties when cooking apples with meat or poultry. “Sour apples go well with main meat dishes, they are more delicious and reduce the feeling of fat. “Sour apples are good for baking with poultry or roasting as a side dish with fatty meats,” he explained.
According to Vladislav Piskunov, brand chef of the Matryoshka restaurant, Antonovka is best suited for poultry with apples: “The taste is best with it. “I usually stuff the inside of the goose with Antonovka and cook the outside with winter red apple varieties and spread it for beauty.”
Pork with apples. unusual recipe
Apples are often used in hot holiday poultry dishes. But they also go well with pork, for example. Jamie Oliver suggests stuffing pork loin with apples.
To do this, you need to preheat the oven to 200 degrees, and in the meantime, finely chop the onions and garlic and send them to a pan for sautéing in a mixture of butter and vegetable oil. Apples need to be chopped into cubes and added to the same pan with thyme sprigs and sage leaves. Then pre-soaked raisins and crumbly bread without crusts are sent there, all this is fried for 3-4 minutes, after which the resulting mixture must be removed from the heat and allowed to cool.
The loin needs to be placed on a cutting board and after cutting, flatten it into two parts. All that remains is to distribute the filling over the entire surface, add salt and pepper, fold it again and tie it with kitchen twine. The resulting structure should be placed on a baking sheet or on a baking sheet covered with parchment, add cider and bake in the oven. Remember to reduce the temperature to 180 degrees after 15 minutes and cook for another hour.
Oven
Onegin recommends using sweeter apples in desserts, including sweet pastries – in this case, less sugar can be added to the dish. But it should be remembered that during heat treatment, fruits of different varieties behave in their own way: looser ones lose their shape, stronger ones, on the contrary, retain their shape. “For example, loose White filling, where the apples are first caramelised, is suitable for Charlotte, but not for Tarte Tatin,” he explained.
For baking, where it is important to maintain the apple shape, you can choose the Bogatyr variety – its fruits are sweet and sour, with white dense pulp. “The aroma of the apple is strong and pleasant,” Gavrilin said. Saffron Pepin, which has an unusual wine-sweet taste, and quite sweet, thick-skinned Zhigulevka are also suitable.
Apple-pie. A win-win recipe
Culinary writer Irina Chadeeva in her book “Pies and Something Else” suggests making chopped puff pastry to prepare Tarte Tatin – chop 125 g of cold butter with 250 g of flour and a pinch of salt, add seven tablespoons of ice water, quickly knead Knead the dough and Put it in the refrigerator for half an hour. Then caramel is made – sugar is poured into a pan, moistened with two tablespoons of water and melted over high heat, shaking occasionally. Add the butter to the melted sugar and wait until the mixture turns brown.
The resulting caramel should be poured into a baking dish. The best is of course a semicircular base, invented in France specifically for Tarte Tatin. Apple halves are placed tightly in the caramel with the rounded side down and this design is sent to the oven for 15 minutes. Then the mold is removed, the apples are covered with the rolled out dough and baked for 25-30 minutes at 200 degrees.
homemade preparations
First of all, early apples – those that ripen in August – should be processed. White filling, Melba, Grushovka Moskovskaya, Yablochny Spas, Arkadik: all these varieties are stored for no more than a few weeks.
According to Gavrilin, white liquor is very aromatic – so it will make an excellent juice, compote or liqueur. Moscow pear (by the way, low-calorie) is also suitable for juice or cider, but it is not recommended to prepare or ferment it for the winter in the form of preserves, marmalade or marshmallows. But from Pepin saffron you will get juice, puree, jam, jam, jam, marmalade and candied fruits.
However, Piskunov believes that juice can be made from any type of apple. “Any type of apple is suitable for making juice. The juice can be fermented and turned into cider. Cider can be distilled to make moonshine. Moonshine can be brewed in oak barrels and turned into Calvados,” he told socialbites.ca.
Well-soaked apples are obtained from white filling. But of course it is best to take aromatic Antonovka for fermentation.
“I think the most interesting variety is Antonovka,” Piskunov explained. “It is very sour, aromatic, you can not only make jam or lozenges from it, but also soak it alone or in cabbage, for example. “This is a different taste.”
Piskunov explained that Antonovka is often replaced by Bogatyr. “But real Antonovka, of course, has a much stronger aroma,” said the chef. He says other apple varieties have poor fermentability: “They either get soft or tasteless.”
Pickled apples. best recipe
Piskunov in his three-volume book “Russian Cuisine”. “The best in 500 years” offers this recipe for making pickled apples. First, you should sort them and get rid of the worms, then put currant and cherry leaves at the bottom of a large pan, pack the apples tightly, sprinkle with anise seeds and pour them into cold brine at the rate of 1 tablespoon of salt. per 1 liter of water. Apples need to be pressed with a weight placed on a porcelain plate or wooden circle, cover the pan with a lid and leave for a week. After that, Piskunov recommends sending the apples to a cold cellar, but in their absence, of course, an ordinary refrigerator will do.