Gaby
The difference between salting and pickling is the brine: salting uses a salt brine, while pickling uses vinegar or citric acid. Using hot brine can speed the salting process to about three days, while cold brine gives firmer tomatoes that taste more like traditional pickles. Softer tomatoes may break apart during fermentation, so choose small, firm tomatoes of uniform size for salting. You can salt the tomatoes directly in glass jars or in a wide pot so they won’t get damaged when you remove them.
Ingredients: tomatoes — 2 kg, water — 1 liter, salt — 2 tablespoons, sugar — 1 tablespoon, garlic — 5 cloves, dill — 2-3 sprigs with seeds, horseradish — root and leaf, currant leaf, cherry leaf, parsley — root and greens, black pepper or hot pepper, bay leaf.
Select small tomatoes without dents or signs of spoilage. Wash them with a brush and place them in a pot or directly into jars with the spices. Wash the herbs as well, and sterilize the jars and lids or wash them with baking soda.
Roughly chop half of the dill with scissors and place it on the bottom of the jar. Add the cherry leaves, currant leaves, horseradish leaves, and half of the minced garlic. To help the tomatoes salt faster, pierce them in several places with a toothpick. Pack the tomatoes tightly into the jar and cover them with the remaining spices. Fill the jar to the top with cold brine if you plan to seal the jars immediately, or with hot brine if you want to speed up the salting.
To prepare the brine, dissolve 2 tablespoons of salt and 1 tablespoon of sugar per 1 liter of water, then add the bay leaf, pepper, and sliced horseradish root. Bring the brine to a boil, pour the hot brine over the tomatoes, cover with a lid, and let the tomatoes salt for 2–3 days at room temperature. After that, move them to the refrigerator.
For cold brine, prepare the brine the same way (boil the water to dissolve the sugar and salt), then let it cool completely before pouring it over the tomatoes. Once the tomatoes are salted (after 5–7 days), move the pot to the refrigerator to stop fermentation. For convenience, transfer the lightly salted tomatoes into jars. Stored at 0°C to +1°C, the pickles will keep for up to 8 months.
If you seal the tomatoes in jars, store them directly in a cellar or refrigerator: the salting process will take one and a half to two months. Canned tomatoes in sealed jars can be stored for 2–3 years.
Life Hack
To help the tomatoes in jars salt faster, cover them with nylon lids and leave them in a dark place at room temperature for a week. When the brine becomes cloudy, tightly seal the jars and move them to cold storage or the refrigerator for two weeks. After that, the salted tomatoes will be ready to enjoy.
