Preserving by Salting

[valmarg]

You need to make sure it's pure salt you use (I found somewhere that sold big bags of coarse salt pretty cheap but can't remember where, possibly Costco?!?) as a lot of commercial table salts have some extra stuff in them to make them easier to pour but you don't want it for preserviing - am guessing it'll say on the packet.

Could I just add to Alison's recommendation.

You need cooking salt, ie pure sodium chloride. If you buy table salt it has an anti-caking additive (Sodium HexacyanoferrateII).

The only time I tried to salt our runner beans, I used table salt, and the beans went mouldy.

Salting is an extremely old way of preserving food - way before additives and E numbers

If you are going to try and preserve food in this way, you need to go back to basics, ie in my case how granny would have done them.

No additives.

valmarg

[Scarlet]

Funnily enough I was *just* trying this out! Preserving lemons though....

I tried lemons last year. They are fab!

[Hilary B]

The point to using salt is that it preserves on the same basis as drying, it makes the water in the food unavailable to the micro-organisms that cause spoilage, and without water they cannot do their harm.
The sugar in jam has a similar function, which is why jam needs boiling to setting point, the ratio of sugar to 'everything else' is what makes it keep. Commercial 'reduced sugar' jams need refidgerating once opened for exactly that reason.

[leicestershirelass]

Have decided to have a go at Salting Runner Beans to preserve them and save on freezer space but was wondering if what other veg could be stored this way

Has any one tried anything else with any success?

Hi ... I tried this method a couple of years ago. I got the recipe/ proportions off the internet. The process went quite well and the beans looked edible.

However despite rinsing the salt off prior to cooking they were still too salty for us. Upon reflection I think the recipe must have been how salting was done years / decades ago .... and as less salt is recommended in our diets these days they were far too salty for our liking.

Learnt from the experience though!

[Alison]

Hi ... I tried this method a couple of years ago. I got the recipe/ proportions off the internet. The process went quite well and the beans looked edible.

However despite rinsing the salt off prior to cooking they were still too salty for us. Upon reflection I think the recipe must have been how salting was done years / decades ago .... and as less salt is recommended in our diets these days they were far too salty for our liking.

Learnt from the experience though!

You do need to rinse and change the water quite a lot otherwise they do still taste pretty salty. We don't add salt when we cook veg normally but still managed to remove enough salt to enjoy the preserved beans.

[northepaul]

I bought some italian salted capers recently and before use, I rinsed them and soaked them for acouple of hours. Maybe that would be a good idea with runners too?