Anyone who grows pumpkins knows that several fruits always ripen on one plant. It can happen that, for example, ten Hokkaido are ripe at the same time. If you don't want to store them, you can preserve the pumpkins, regardless of the variety, sweet and sour or savory.
How to can and preserve pumpkin?
To successfully can pumpkin, you need ripe pumpkins, mason jars as well as spices and ingredients for sweet or savory brew variants. After preparing the pumpkin and preparing the broth, you can fill the pumpkin pieces into glasses and pour the broth. Then it is preserved in the oven or automatic preserving machine.
How to properly preserve pumpkin
If you want to preserve a pumpkin, you first have to make sure that the fruit is ripe. A good option is the knock test. If the pumpkin sounds hollow, it is ready to harvest. In addition to the pumpkin, you will need other ingredients such as: water, vinegar, sugar, spices for the sweet version are vanilla, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, spices for the savory version are Horseradish slices, bay leaves, ginger pieces, small onions, dill seeds or mustard seeds.
- First, sterilize your mason jars, lids and rubber in boiling water or in the oven at 100 degrees for 10 minutes.
- Now prepare the pumpkin. Except for Hokkaido, all pumpkins must be peeled. The Hokkaido peel becomes very soft when cooked and can be eaten.
- Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the soft inside and the seeds. Pressure and rot areas must also be cut away. You don't need to throw away the pumpkin seeds. Wash the kernels, dry them and roast them as a tasty snack between meals.
- Then divide the pumpkin halves into bite-sized pieces and layer them in the glasses up to about two centimeters below the rim.
- Now prepare a sweet or savory broth. The sugar should be dissolved and the spicy spices should come to the boil.
- Pour the still hot liquid over the fruit. There should be 1 cm space at the edge and the pumpkins must be covered.
- Dry the edge of the glass again and then close the glasses.
You can now preserve the pumpkin jars in two different ways.
Waking in the oven
Preheat the oven to 100 degrees. Take out the drip pan and place the glasses in it. Fill with about 2 cm of warm water. Then cook the pumpkin at 90 degrees for half an hour. Allow the jars to cool a little in the oven before removing them and letting them cool completely under a cloth. Preserved pumpkins keep in the jar for about a year.
Canning in the automatic canner
Place your glasses in the kettle so that they don't touch each other. Pour in enough water until the glasses are half submerged. When boiling down, follow the kettle manufacturer's instructions. As a rule, pumpkin jars are soaked at 90 degrees for half an hour. After the cooking time, the glasses remain in the machine for some time until they cool completely under a cloth.
