Winter preserves begin not with a recipe but with a sheet of paper. Summer is short, vegetables and fruit ripen all in the same week, and if you do not think ahead you end up either with thirty jars of the same jam or without a single jar of zacuscă in January. So first we count what we eat, and then we buy.

Below is a simple plan: what to preserve, in what order by month, the proportions of the basic preserves and what to buy ahead. There are no prices in the text, they change every week: you will see the current shop offers in the live blocks.

What to preserve at all

First write down what your family eats in winter. Usually it is: zacuscă with bread and with meat, pickles (cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, peppers), compotes for every day, jam for tea and baking and frozen berries, peppers and greens. The rest is optional: lecsó, tomato sauce, hot pepper relish, dried fruit.

To avoid getting lost, count the jars. Say you open about one jar a week: that is about thirty jars for the winter. Split them up: eight to ten jars of zacuscă, six to eight jars each of pickled cucumbers and tomatoes, five or six jars of compote, four or five jars of jam. And a few more in reserve.

Zacuscă: proportions and shopping

Classic zacuscă is a vegetable spread of roasted aubergines and peppers with onion, tomatoes and oil. A rough proportion: a kilo of aubergines, a kilo of peppers, half a kilo of onions, half a kilo of tomatoes and a glass of vegetable oil. That gives about three litres of finished zacuscă, that is six half-litre jars. For ten jars take double.

Buy the vegetables at the very peak of the season, when peppers, aubergines and tomatoes are plentiful. Buy the sunflower oil early, because a big batch needs a lot. What there is now in vegetables:

In the catalogues now: vegetables

All offers

Tomatoes: for sauce, pickles and zacuscă

You need tomatoes in three kinds: for zacuscă and sauce (fleshy, ripe), for pickling (firm, all the same size) and for juice. Buy them by the crate when the season is in full swing: that works out better and gives you stock for several preserves at once. Tomatoes for sauce can be overripe, if not rotten, whereas for pickling they must be firm.

What there is now in tomatoes:

In the catalogues now: tomatoes

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Sunflower oil: for zacuscă and lecsó

More oil goes into preserves than it seems. Ten jars of zacuscă take about half a litre of refined oil, plus oil for roasting the vegetables and for lecsó. Buy it early: it keeps, and at the height of the preserving season demand is higher and the choice narrower.

What there is now in oil:

In the catalogues now: sunflower oil

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Pickles: cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage

For pickling vegetables the brine is made of water and salt: about fifty to sixty grams of salt per litre of water. Besides that you need dill, garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns, blackcurrant or horseradish leaves. Choose small cucumbers of the same size, soak them for a couple of hours in cold water and then pack them tightly.

Sauerkraut is made differently: per kilo of shredded cabbage about twenty grams of salt and a carrot, all rubbed by hand until it gives juice. See the recipe in the article on sauerkraut. For cucumbers and other vegetables for pickling see the block above.

Compotes and jam: fruit and sugar

Compote. A three-litre jar is filled about a third with fruit and topped with hot syrup: about a glass of sugar per jar. Apples, pears, plums, apricots, sour cherries and grapes all work. The taste is adjusted: sour fruit asks for a little more sugar.

Jam. Per kilo of fruit or berries use from five hundred to eight hundred grams of sugar. The less sugar, the longer you need to boil for the jam to thicken. The fruit for jam should be ripe but not soft. What there is now in fruit:

In the catalogues now: fruit

All offers

And here is what there is in sugar:

In the catalogues now: sugar

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Jars, lids and the rest

Take jars and lids a tenth more than you worked out. The lids should have no dents or rust, and the jars no chips on the rim. Wash the jars with baking soda and sterilise them with steam or in the oven, and boil the lids for a few minutes. Label the cooled jars: what is inside and which year. In a month you will not remember which is the zacuscă with hot pepper and which without.

It is better to keep preserves in a cool, dark place: a cellar, a cupboard on the balcony or a pantry. Check the lids: a bulging jar is not opened but thrown away.

The preserving calendar by month

  • June: strawberry and cherry jam, frozen berries.
  • July: apricot and sour cherry jam, pickles from the first cucumbers.
  • August: pickles, compotes from plums and peaches, tomatoes for sauce.
  • September: zacuscă, lecsó, compotes from apples, pears and grapes.
  • October: sauerkraut, pumpkin, walnuts.
  • November: you stock up on potatoes and root vegetables for winter.

A short checklist

  • Count the jars by what you really open.
  • Make a list: zacuscă, pickles, compotes, jam, freezing.
  • Buy vegetables and fruit at the peak of the season.
  • Buy the oil, sugar and jars ahead.
  • Label the jars and put them in a cool, dark place.