How to make pickled vegetables crispy and delicious? What are the methods?

In rural areas, pickling pickles is a very common thing. You can see all kinds of pickles hanging in front of every household. At the same time, this is also the most durable way to preserve food, especially in winter, when fresh vegetables are difficult to store, so they have to be pickled after the harvest to survive the winter. There are many ways to pickle pickles, and there are also many types, such as pickled cucumbers, pickled meat, pickled radishes, etc. So how do you make pickles crispy and delicious?

Preparation method

1. Wash the mustard greens, marinate one pound of greens with 20 grams of salt for 10 minutes, then rub the greens with your hands to soften them. This step will make the greens more refreshing.

Pickled vegetables

Pickled vegetables

2. Blanch the vegetables in boiling water. The vegetables are only lightly cooked and not fully cooked, and the blanching time should not exceed one minute.

3. Pick up the vegetables and put them into the container.

4. Do not pour out the water used to blanch the vegetables. Add 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar after the water has cooled. After the vegetable water has cooled, pour it into a container with mustard greens. The water must cover the top of the greens.

5. Marinated with vinegar, it can be eaten after 24 hours. If it is not pickled with vinegar, it needs to be soaked for half a month before it can be eaten. [1]

Hazard Analysis

During the pickling process, nitrite can inhibit the growth of Clostridium botulinum and other types of spoilage bacteria, has good coloring and antioxidant effects, and can improve the flavor of pickled foods. However, nitrite can react with amines, the decomposition product of protein in pickled foods, to form nitrosamines, which are strong carcinogens. The presence of nitrite in pickled foods is the main potential hazard.

Traditional vegetables take a long time to pickle and cannot be eaten after just a few days. Generally speaking,

Pickled vegetables

Pickled vegetables

When vegetables are first pickled, the nitrite content will continue to increase, reach a peak and then decrease. This peak is called the nitrite peak. Some vegetables have one peak, while others have three peaks. Generally speaking, the nitrite content in vegetables is highest when they are pickled for about a week, and it is very low after 20 days. It is safer to eat it at this time. In order to reduce costs, some restaurants may not wait long enough before using the pickled vegetables to cook, and diners eat large quantities, which can easily lead to accidents. When pickling vegetables, you should choose vegetables that have been fertilized with less nitrogen fertilizer, wash the vegetables as clean as possible, use clean water and pickling jars, and allow less air to enter the vegetable pickling jars.

In order to reduce the nitrite content in pickled vegetables, you can also add some vitamin C when pickling the vegetables. Add 4 vitamin C grains to 1 kilogram of cabbage. The main function of adding vitamin C is to block the formation of nitrite, and it can also prevent the sauerkraut from moldy and reduce sourness and odor. Also add enough salt and make sure it is marinated thoroughly. If insufficient salt is used, bacteria cannot be completely suppressed, causing the nitrates in the vegetables to be reduced to harmful nitrites.

Acute poisoning

Long-term intake of large amounts of nitrite by the human body can cause vasodilation, and the iron in hemoglobin in the blood will be oxidized and unable to combine with oxygen, resulting in oxidized hemoglobin blood disease, which reduces the blood's oxygen transport capacity, destroys blood cells, and causes hemoglobin to appear in plasma and urine, causing blockage of the renal tubules. Generally, 0.3 to 0.5 g of nitrite ingested by the human body can cause poisoning, and more than 3 g can be fatal.

Carcinogenicity

Pickled vegetables

Pickled vegetables

Nitrite can react with amines, the protein decomposition product in cured meat, to form nitrosamines, which are strong carcinogens. According to animal experiments, large amounts at one time or long-term intake can cause cancer. Human nasopharyngeal cancer, esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, etc. are all related to nitrosamines. Under the action of microsomal hydroxylases in the body, nitrosamines undergo a series of metabolism, causing cells to mutate or become cancerous.