It is the most delicate version of the original recipe and is perfect to serve as an appetizer for any occasion
There gardener It is the best way to preserve the vegetables of every period of the year, to be able to taste them intact in their taste and flavor even when they are no longer in season. Store the vegetables in vinegar It is one of the oldest methods to keep the aroma of each ingredient intact, a preparation that has come back into fashion in the last period! In this case, to prepare a sweet and sour salad, we combine it with vinegar sugar, to get a taste less pungent and more delicate, which can also please children. Once ready, you can use your own gardener like starter, to be served on toasted bread crostini, or to accompany a nice dish of mixed cold cuts or again with fish. If you are longing for cold dishes like rice salad, the hand made gardener is perfect to use like seasoning.
Spices and herbs for an extra touch
To enrich the taste of the sweet and sour salad, you can add some vinegar and sugar in the mixture of water spices or aromatic herbs among those that you like the most, which will give your starter a fuller flavor. They go well with vegetables nutmeg, cloves is cinnamon. But also fragrant herbs like basil, parsley, thyme, bay leaf and fennel. The aromatic herbs you can choose to add them fresh (if you have them), but also shallows: they will have a more intense aroma and aroma, so decrease the quantity.
The recipe of the sweet and sour gardener
Ingredients: 1 kg of mixed vegetables including courgettes, peppers, onions, carrots and celery, 120 g white wine vinegar, 70 ml of extra virgin olive oil, 120 g cane sugar, 2 cloves, a few juniper berries, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 bay leaf, a pinch of salt.
Method: wash the onions, sprinkle the courgettes, wash and cut into chunks. Peel the carrots and celery and slice them in strips, clean the peppers, removing the seeds and the white parts, wash them and cut into small pieces. In a saucepan bring to the boil the extra virgin olive oil with vinegar, sugar, juniper berries, cinnamon, bay leaf, cloves and salt. Add the onions, celery and carrots and blanch for four minutes. Then add the rest of the vegetables and cook for another three minutes, until they are cooked but still crisp. Remove from heat, drain with a skimmer and pour into the jars you have previously sterilized. Fill up to 1 cm from the edge with their cooking liquid, close the jars, turn them upside down and let them cool in this position, to obtain the vacuum. Once cold, check that the vacuum has formed (the lid must do the usual click-clack) and let rest in your sweet and sour vegetables a few weeks before consuming.
