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Lavashak is a sour and salty food that is one of the best snacks. If you are a lover of sour tastes, you definitely have a favorite feeling of all kinds of lavashak.
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At the same time, you are always striving to have the best lavashaks in different and attractive tastes of pickles and saltiness together.
So, in this article, be with us on the Cookery Magazine website so that we can have a comprehensive and complete conversation in a simple passage through the world of lavashaks.
Ingredients for making Lavashak
Usually, for the preparation of Fruit Leather, we use the recipe for plum Fruit Leathers, and this recipe can be extended to all fruits:
| Yellow, red or forest plum | 1 kilogram |
| Salt (as desired) | As much as needed |
| Water | 2 cups |
Lavashak Recipe
The first step
Pay attention to the first step of how to prepare lavash, which is the most important part. When buying plums, try to choose ripe fruits that are close to being crushed.
In this way, you will not only save the fruits from being thrown away but the final texture and taste of your lavashak will also be better.
Depending on your preference, you can use one type or several types of plums for lavashak. Red plums give a beautiful color to our fruit leather.
Wash the fruits well and remove the wood and calyx. Then, put them in a large pot and add two glasses of water.
Put the pot on low heat until the water slowly boils. After the water boils, reduce the flame. Pour a tablespoon of salt on the plums and stir them well. Salt is added to the mixture to prevent lavashak from becoming moldy.
Do not leave the pot open; cover it with the pot’s lid. The water and foam of the plums may slip out of the pot and fall on the stove.
Stir the plums every few minutes, but do not add any water. The broth should be boiled until it thickens. The higher the concentration of the sauce, the better the final taste and aroma of your lavashak.
The second step
After an hour or two, when the mixture of plums becomes like a soup, turn off the flame. At this stage of how to prepare lavash, plum cores are easily separated from their flesh. Set the pot aside to cool.
In the meantime, prepare a pair of gloves, a colander, and a basin according to the volume of the liquid. It is much better if you use a metal colander.
Pour the cooked plums into the strainer and press, and stir with your hands. The flesh of the fruits is separated from the skin and core, and the juice is poured into the basin.
Keep stirring until all the juice and flesh of the plums are removed and only the skin and core remain in the colander.
It is not necessary to add lemon juice, pomegranate juice, or any other sour substance to lavashak.
The third level
In the third step, choose a tray or a large container suitable for the volume of lavashak. Spread a layer of clean nylon flat inside. Then, pour the batter into the tray. You can shake the tray a little to spread the sauce evenly.
In general, if possible, place the tray in a place where the sun shines directly on it. If you don’t have access to the sun, put the tray in a warm place so that the water evaporates as soon as possible and the mixture dries. It is better to cover the container with a thin net cloth so that dust or insects do not fall into our lavashaks.
Depending on the humidity of the environment, the fruit leather will dry in 2 to 6 days. Check the tray every day and check the status. Be careful not to dry the lavash too much.
You can cut the dried and prepared lavashak into thin strips with a knife or scissors. We suggest that you roll up the lavashaks so they don’t stick together and then store them in a sealed container or plastic.
How to use the oven for drying
After completing all the preparation steps, pour the puree (smashed fruits) into the baking tray that you have placed greaseproof paper inside and move the tray a bit so that the puree is spread evenly in all parts.
Then, turn on the oven to a temperature of 200 degrees Fahrenheit (95 degrees Celsius) and place the trays inside the oven slowly. Let the trays stay in the oven for one to two hours.
Of course, this time depends on the thickness of the puree in the tray. As long as you press it when testing and it is sticky, your trays should stay in the oven.
You should also know that you should not preheat the oven to prepare lavashak in this way because it will burn it.
What is Lavashak?!
Lavashak is a food of Iranian origin, which is prepared from the condensed juice and consistency of fleshy fruits in sour and salty flavors.
To prepare this dish, they use fruits such as plums, apples, kiwis, pomegranates, etc. The sour taste of Lavashak has a special attraction, and in general, these junk foods are prepared from pickles and salt to achieve these attractive tastes.
Iranians often make lavashak at the end of summer which has several reasons. First, they used to dry fruits in summer so that they could have access to all kinds of fruits in winter, and this is an old tradition in Iran.
Another reason is the large variety of fruits in the summer season, which makes it possible to prepare fruit smoothies with different flavors from very ripe and surplus fruits.Ā
Also, the summer weather is hot and dry and facilitates the process of drying and preparing this food.
The name of Lavashak is derived from the word lavash. The term lavash refers to anything wide and thin that has been dried.Ā
Lavashak is also prepared from the spread and dried extract of various fruits in such a way that they are poured on a tray to form a thin layer; thus, a thin sheet of dried fruit extract is prepared.
In terms of nutritional science experts, lavashak is a type of concentrate. Concentrates are a wide range of foods based on fruit extracts.
Since Lavashak is also prepared from fruit extracts, it is considered a kind of concentrate. But it is a natural, traditional, authentic, and delicious concentrate.
Although these days we know lavashaks as sour snacks, But the roots of its invention were not for recreational purposes and snacks. Lavashak is a method of preserving food for a long time, likeĀ dried fruit.Ā
In the past, when there was no such thing as a refrigerator or freezer, a large part of the fruits were dried in the form of Fruit Leather to keep them for a long time.
Of course, because Fruit Leather has a sour and salty taste of fruits, it is now known as an attractive snack.
To prepare lavashk, the fruits are dried in a spread form in front of the sun.
The core of the fruits is separated, and the fleshy part of the fruit is mixed, along with the addition of salt, and spread on large trays to dry in the sunlight.
In this way, depending on which fruit you have used, all kinds of Fruit Leather are prepared.
At the same time, the taste of Fruit Leather varies depending on the sourness and sweetness and the amount of added salt.
All kinds of lavashak are prepared in sour, sweet, salty, etc. flavors. But sour Lavashaks are more popular than other tastes. As long as Lavashak is more sour, it is more attractive and popular with others.
The most famous types of lavashak and their properties
Barberry Fruit Leather
Barberry is a sour fruit, and its Fruit Leather is one of the most popular authentic Iranian Fruit Leathers. Barberry is a native fruit of the central plateau of Iran.
That is why its lavashak is so popular and loved by Iranians. To prepare barberry Fruit Leather, you must soak barberry seeds in water for 24 hours before starting the cooking stage.
Barberry seeds are hard, and you cannot get the final consistency of lavashk except by soaking them in water. Barberry Fruit Leather is one of the sour-tasting lavashaks.
It is useful for controlling blood sugar and blood pressure, reducing fever, controlling heart rate, and treating and preventing rheumatic and joint pains.
Kiwi Fruit Leather
Kiwi is one of the fruits with a sweet taste. This fruit is basically sweet. But its sweetness has a special taste with sourness. Of course, the taste of kiwi is completely dependent on whether it is ripe or not. The firmer the kiwi is, the closer the taste is to sourness.
To prepare kiwi Fruit Leather, after peeling, put all the fruit in a blender and mix. Then, cook this mixture prepared from kiwi fruits in a suitable container for at least two hours. The rest of the steps are similar to the general cooking recipe for lavashaks.
Greengage lavashak
Greengage Fruit Leather is one of the most popular Fruit Leathers. Green tomato is a popular summer fruit, and its Fruit Leather also has its own lovely place.
To prepare Greengage Fruit Leather, they usually use a little barberry. The flesh of the Greengage fruit is hard and simply does not reach the desired consistency for preparing fruit Leather.
The method of cooking Greengage in the stages of Fruit Leather preparation is slightly different from its general method.
In the first cooking stage, a high flame is needed so that the Fruit Leather can be placed in the boiled water for a long time.
In this way, they have the right softness for the final consistency of Fruit Leather. In the post-cooking phase, you also need to strain to remove the impurities of the cooked Greengage.
Apple Lavashak
Apple Fruit Leather is usually produced and marketed in combination with other fruits, such as plums and apricots. One of the most important properties of apple fruit leather is that it relieves constipation and helps with digestive problems.
Peach Fruit Leather
Peach is a summer fruit. It has a soft texture with sour and sweet flavors. The flesh of the peach fruit easily finds the desired consistency of Fruit Leather.
Peel the peaches and heat them with a little sugar in a suitable container. The presence of sugar accelerates the drying of peaches and the preparation of peach Fruit Leather.
At the same time, it puts the taste of peach in a better space than sourness and sweetness.
This junk food is included in the category of sweet Fruit leather and does not have a good taste in the field of pickles.
Mulberry Fruit Leather
Black mulberry is a popular and attractive summer fruit.
It has a sweet taste mixed with mild sourness.
A taste that is perfectly suitable for making Fruit Leather.
Mulberry Fruit Leather is popular and slightly more expensive than other fruit leathers.
Follow the same pattern as the original instruction in the method of preparing Shahtoot lavashak.
The difference is that before the beginning of the cooking stage, you can mix all the berries with using a mixer.
Blueberry Fruit Leather
Due to its antimicrobial properties, it prevents urinary tract infections. It is also very effective for insomnia.
Lemon Fruit Leather
It has a strong antiseptic effect, which has a significant effect on kidney problems such as Kidney stone disease, allergies, and weight loss due to its antimicrobial properties.
It also has anti-cancer properties due to its antioxidant compounds.
Pomegranate Fruit Leather
Pomegranate lavashak is one of the most delicious Iranian Fruit Leathers. The pomegranate is a native fruit of Iran.
To the extent that Iranians have much more of this fruit than any other country in the world.
The pomegranate is the cultural fruit of Iranians. This fruit has deep cultural roots in the Iranian lifestyle.
This junk food is as delicious as the pomegranate itself. The taste of it is completely dependent on the taste of pomegranate seeds.
If you have prepared lavashak from sweet pomegranate seeds, you will have a sweet pomegranate Fruit Leather or sweet-and-sour taste.
But if you are looking for its sour taste from the world of lavashak, you should try pomegranate Fruit Leather, made from sour pomegranate.
The way to prepare pomegranate lavashak is similar to others, With the difference that it has a preliminary cooking step to soften the pomegranate seeds and separate their cores.
This fruit leather has a significant role in regulating and controlling urea and cholesterol, eliminating toxins, and regulating body fluids.
Remember that Fruit Leather can never wholly replace fresh fruits because the process of making it causes the loss of some substances.
It is nutritious, like vitamins. Also, homemade detergents are healthier than industrial detergents.
Excess amounts of salt and other additives in industrial detergents can be harmful to health.
Having a journey in the history of Fruit Leather
The history of Lavashk before Christ?!!
The history of Fruit Leather goes back to the era before Christ and several thousand years ago. Even in the inscriptions and reliefs of Persepolis, it can be seen that one of the ranking and well-known Iranian generals introduced Lavashak as one of the best foods of this homeland.
This delicious junk food has been passed down from hand to hand until it reached us.
In the old days, lavashks were divided into two categories: one category was homemade lavashaks, which mothers mainly made.
They were available in certain seasons, and in many seasons, they disappeared and could not be found forever.
But the second category was better: non-homemade dishes full of paint and dirt, which followed an old principle related to food, and that principle is the dirtier sample is always the tastier sample.
These lavashaks are a tough competitor for homemade lavashaks in their sourness and taste.
However, it is also mentioned in the documents that according to the research, theĀ people of the Middle EastĀ found out for the first time that fresh fruits can be stored for a year if they are cooked, pureed, and dried. Apricot was probably the first fruit they used as fruit leather.
In all the ancient cooking books, lavashak is mentioned as a Middle Eastern or Iranian dish. This Iranian dried fruit is called bastaq in Armenian cookbooks that provide recipes for preparing lavashak in the old ways at home.
In this book, it is stated that after cooking, the fruits are dried and pureed in metal trays, and then they are placed under the sun to dry. Then, the product is cut into desired shapes and stored in a glass container.
The story of Lavashak begins with the creativity of Iranians to preserve food. Of course, in ancient times, almost all civilizations knew the art of long-term food preservation.
By adding salt to food, they prevented food from spoiling in the long term. But the art of long-term preservation of fruit was an adventure that only appeared among Iranians.
In ancient times, Iranians made a large part of the seasonal fruits that were available in the market in the form of lavashak to use on other days of the year.
They had learned the art of using salt with meaty fruits. At the same time, they used the power of the sun to dry the fruits indirectly.
Water is the main cause of fruit rotting, and if you can extract the juice without destroying the fruit tissue, the dried fruit extract will last for a long time.
Salt is also a complementary element that is used in the right amount until it does not make the lavashak salty. The presence of salt will prevent lavashak from becoming moldy in the long run.
What are the benefits and nutritional properties of Lavashak?
The properties of Lavashak are related to the fruits it is made up of because it can be made from many different fruits.
Apart from salt, which is added to prevent spoilage of all types of industrial fruit leather and is considered one of the disadvantages of this food, but there are useful micronutrients and some vitamins in good amounts in lavashak.
Lavashk contains vitamins A and B and minerals (especially potassium and calcium), which is suitable as a snack because of its low calories, and its consumption does not lead to obesity.
Plums are useful for treating constipation, and apple Fruit Leather has the opposite effect Due to its antimicrobial properties; blueberries can be useful in preventing urinary infections in women.
But in general, it can be said that lavashaks help digestion, fight fatigue, help remove kidney stones, and have anti-cancer properties. Helps skin health, prevents urinary tract infections.
Disadvantages of lavashak
Lavashak has a lot of salt, so consuming a lot of lavashak due to its high amount of sodium and potassium causes the body to lose water and, as a result, causes dehydration.
Consuming all kinds of lavashak is extremely harmful to people who suffer from stomach problems such as reflux or high secretion of stomach acid.
Consuming too much Pickles and Fruit Leathers, due to their high acid content, destroys tooth enamel. The biggest problem with plums or fruits that turn into lavashak is their high acidity.
Also, children usually put lavashak or plum’s fruit leather in their mouths and suck it slowly, and due to high acidity, this can cause erosion of their tooth enamel in the long run.
For this reason, it is better to drink some water after consuming these types of foods and junk foods. Consuming too much of lavashaks and pickles can cause menstrual disorders in women and young girls.
Physical Characteristics of Fruit Leather
The litter must be free of live pests such as Hexapodas, mites, fungi, and molds.
Lavashak should be the natural color of the fruits used in its preparation or a little darker.
Spectacular foreign materials such as pieces of fruit skin, kernels, seeds and calyx, leaves, soil and sand, straw, etc., should not be present in Lavashak.
Lavashak should have the natural smell and taste of the fruit used in its preparation and should not have a foreign smell and taste such as sourness, burn, or mold.
The thickness of the lavashak sheet should not be less than 1 mm and more than 5-8 mm, and it should be uniform as much as possible; The high thickness of lavashak causes it to mold.
What are the types of Fruit Leather based on taste?
Various fruits are used to prepare Fruit Leather. The way to prepare all types of Fruit Leather is more or less the same. Types of lavashak are different based on the type of fruit.
Various fruits such as plums, apricots, Prunus cerasifera (cherry plum and myrobalan plum), pears, figs, peaches, raspberries, blackberries, Greengage, apples, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, and pomegranates are used to prepare all kinds of lavashaks.
Each fruit has its own taste. In this way, the taste of pomegranate lavashak is the same as sour pomegranate, and this taste is the same in apples, peaches, figs, etc.
What are the types of lavashak based on the method of production?
Industrial fruit leather
The level of acceptance of fruit leather is so high that it is not possible to satisfy the market demand only with all kinds of homemade fruit leather.
All kinds of industrial fruit leathers are in a wide variety to produce a large volume of this sour food.
Of course, in the preparation of industrial lavashak, additional food ingredients are used, which is different from the way of preparing homemade fruit leathers.
Pectin or gelatin is used in the preparation of industrial fruit leathers to achieve a higher fruit consistency.
At the same time, they use edible organic acids or salt to make the industrial lavashakas as long as possible, as well as the sour and salty taste.
Artificial sugars such as glucose or sucrose are also used to achieve sweet and sour taste. Industrial fruit leather cannot have the original position of home fruit leather.
But sometimes, it is better than homemade samples in terms of creation, taste, and even durability. In any case, currently, a large part of the lavashaks in the market are made from these industrialized samples.
Homemade fruit leather
As it comes from the name of this type, it is completely prepared in traditional home spaces and workshops or completely ancient methods. Homemade fruit leather has a healthier composition than industrial one.
Certainly, fewer additives such as salt, sugar, acid, or preservatives have been used in the preparation of homemade lavashaks. Homemade lavashaks are made entirely from drying fruits in front of sunlight and open air.
Frequently Asked Questions about Persian Fruit Leather
What are the other names of Lavashak?
Lavashak is known by Persian fruit leather, Persian fruit roll up, or Iranian fruit roll.
What factor has caused the benefits of homemade lavashaks to be paid less attention?
The cause is that open space is used to dry this type of laundry. The presence of infected vermin, soil dust, aerobic microbes, lead particles suspended in the urban air, and bird and livestock droppings in rural areas are all among the factors that direct our attention to the consumption of industrial fruit leathers.
Conclusion
Thank you for being with us with another delicious, tasty, and mouth-watering lavashak article.
If you have any questions, it’s my honor to answer. Enjoy your exploration of Persian cuisine!
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