“Vegetable Bouquet” Salad for Winter Canning
“Vegetable Bouquet” is a generous end-of-summer canning project built around green, unripe tomatoes alongside carrot, zucchini, and sweet pepper. Those green tomatoes are the whole point: unlike ripe ones, they don’t collapse into mush but keep a firm, slightly tart bite even after stewing. The recipe traces back to home kitchens of the 1990s and 2000s, born of the season’s-end problem of using up hard tomatoes that never ripened on the vine.
The cooking secret
The one move that matters most is frying each vegetable on its own instead of all together. That lets the carrot caramelize, the onion go golden, and the zucchini shed its water before joining the pot. Dump everything in at once and you get a watery, flat-tasting jar. The curry and bay leaf go in at the very end so their aroma survives the long stew.
Swaps: young pattypan squash or courgette can replace the zucchini, and celery root stands in for parsley root if needed. For more heat, add extra garlic and a hot pepper pod. Don’t skip wrapping the sealed jars in a blanket — the slow cool-down acts as a second, gentle pasteurization and lengthens the shelf life. Serve as a cold appetizer with potatoes, grains, or meat through the winter.
Part of Ukrainian cuisine — 301 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Wash the green tomatoes, cut away any dark spots, and chop into small pieces. Fry in oil, covered.
Grate the carrots on the coarse side of a grater and fry separately in oil.
Separately fry the onion, the diced zucchini, and the pepper cut into rings.
Combine all the vegetables in a large pot, salt to taste, and add peppercorns, bay leaf, and, if you like, ground black pepper and curry. Stew for 10-15 minutes.
Add the crushed garlic along with the dill and parsley greens. Stew for about another 10 minutes.
Ladle the hot salad into sterile jars and seal. Turn upside down, wrap in a warm blanket or throw, and leave until fully cooled.
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