Received from my mother-in-law a gift from the past. I show how I adapted it in my kitchen.
Recently, we often go with our family to visit our mother-in-law. A lot of berries have ripened on her site, which my wife and I collect and then make jam from them. This year, most of all black currant was born.
I prepared a lot of blackcurrant jam, the empty jars were already over, and the berries were still running out. At that moment, the mother-in-law came to the rescue. She decided to give me a “gadget” that she had bought back in the USSR.
I didn't expect my mother-in-law to part with this device so easily, but I was glad. Since with its help I can easily cope with the processing of black currant.
This gadget is a juicer. It is made of aluminum, and it can be seen from it that it served as a mother-in-law faithfully and has not broken down over the years. Although there is nothing special to break here.
The principle of operation of such a juicer is very simple. Pour water into the lower part. Then a saucepan with a faucet is placed on top, inside which there is a slightly smaller pan with holes. It looks a lot like a colander.
Berries or fruits are poured into this colander. The colander is inserted into the pot and placed on top of the pot of water, and covered with a lid on top. Then this whole structure is put on the stove.
When water boils in the lower pot, steam from the water rises and heats the berries, which eventually burst and release juice. The juice flows through a colander into a medium saucepan and is poured out through a faucet.
There should be a rubber tube outside the faucet to make it easier to pour the juice into the cans, but this juicer has lost the tube. And this turned out to be not such a significant problem.
The biggest problem is that the aluminum pan does not work on an induction hob. I tried to put it on the adapter, but with it the water boiled very slowly.
I even wanted to brew juice on a camping gas stove, but then I would have to spend a lot of gas, and it is expensive in cylinders. But first I decided to try to pick up a pan, suddenly something would fit.
The thought turned out to be correct, and one of the homemade pots fit perfectly. As a result, my construction looked like this. (The photo was taken on a gas stove, as it is more convenient to shoot there).
Instead of a tube, I used foil, which I wrapped around the faucet. Due to this, the faucet lengthened and the juice stopped dripping onto the stove.
As a result, in a day I managed to process all the black currants into thick juice. The juice is super concentrated. I pour it into sterilized bottles and store it in a dark place.
True, such juice in our family does not last long. In the summer, I like to pour ice into a glass, add a little juice concentrate and pour soda water. It turns out soda that you can't buy in a store.
Do you use gadgets from the past in your cooking?