Hello cooks and food people.
I have a question about a product that I found in a Russian Deli.
It's called Russian eggplant caviar. The bottle reads: Eggplant, tomato concentrate, carrot, onion, sunflower oil, sugar, salt, parsley, red pepper.
My question is as follows. This stuff was on the shelf and not refrigerated and is not very salty or sweet... Is it as simple as it seems to make stuff like this or are their health concerns in making a preserve of similar ingredients and keeping it in the fridge for multiple weeks?
I know there are methods which they might have taken including ultra high temp pasteurization and vacuum sealing in boiled glasses, but is there something unsaid? like in Russia do they not need to place preservative ingreedients on labels? (the bottle's label is written in russian although the name and ingreedients are also in english.
I ask because I would like to make spreads similar to this and am wondering if something with similar ingredients would have a decent shelf-life in the refridgerator. (unpasteurized)
Your thoughts would be much appreciated on this topic.
California Cook
