Kirsten, aka My Sister The Genius, has spent all of her spring breaks hanging out with Rachel and I, soaking up the one-on-one sibling love she's been denied for most of her life, one week at a time. She flew into D.C. this year with visions of Grandma Hull's strawberry jam, a nostalgic dish made of items at the grocery store one block away, just the kind of thing to bring a small family gathering together. I had fantasies of trying out a microwave mozzarella recipe, a dish we've never made that requires specialty ingredients and equipment.
A lack of rennet in the greater Washington area put the kibosh on my debut as a cheesemaker, but not before we spent six hours over two days online, on the phone and in the car in what became known as The Rennet Debacle of '08. With memories of The Fig Annoyance of '06, we put a bow on the cheese idea and focused on making preserves.
Coagulated fruit juice is delicious!
Fruit Preserves, including Jams, Jellies and ChutneysEvery time I went to my Grandma Hull's house she had multiple jars of strawberry jam in the freezer. She served it like that, frozen in the jar, and the sugar would crunch in your mouth no matter how hot a biscuit it was sitting on. My Grandpa grew strawberries in the backyard so we ate them fresh all summer long, but there was always enough to refill the jelly jars before fall. There was a blackberry bush too, but I don't remember any blackberry jam. I may have eaten too many of them off the bush to build up a jam worthy stockpile, I don't know.
Grandma made grape jelly too, and I know they had grape vines, but I don't know if she was boiling down the juice or buying it. Either way, the grape jelly doesn't really stand out. It was good, but not much different than store bought. But Grandma's strawberry jam was a unique beast. It tasted like strawberries but there was so much sugar there were white peaks in the jar where it hadn't dissolved. It was spreadable candy and I could hardly get enough.
Here's the thing: I was surprised by the 1-to-1 ratio of sugar to fruit in most of these recipes and yet none of them came even close to the sugar content of Grandma's jam. There were a couple of recipes we didn't try that called for little or no cooking time, that may have been her method, meaning she might not have been doubling the sugar. But almost 10 years after pulling the last jar of Grandma's jam out of her freezer, I've realized I can do without the crunch.
Strawberry Refrigerator JamThis is the recipe we ended up using, from
The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, page 649.
Ingredients
1 quart strawberries, hulled and sliced thin
3/4 cup sugar
2 tbl fresh lemon juice
It's really simple, you just put everything together in a nonstick skillet over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring often. They have a whole bowl-with-ice thing to figure out when it's done, but you don't have to be that smart. When it's boiled down enough to start looking syrupy, when it starts to run off a spoon in a string, when it gets that 'jam smell'. Just remember, as the book points out, "err on the side of undercooking, as the jam will thicken as it cools".
They include variations for apricot, plum and peach jams, substituting 1 pound of fruit for the 1 quart of strawberries. Rachel and Kirsten made the strawberry jam in DC using this recipe and it was really good. Erin and I made the same recipe when we got back to New York using 2 mangoes, with equal results.
Too bad Grandpa didn't grow mangoes.
The Magic of PectinPreserving food in sugar is an ancient concept. Before Europeans started importing sugar from the colonies, people had been preserving everything from from fruit to meat in honey for thousands of years. When the fruit is submersed in material with a higher sugar content than the fruit itself, the microorganisms that cause spoilage are dehydrated by the water absorbing sugar and killed. The same result is achieved in different ways by salting and smoking, but obviously those methods don't vibe with fruit the way they do with cod.
But there's a step past boiling in sugar. From page 171 of
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee:
Pectin Gels
Preserves get their smooth, semisolid consistency not from sugar, but from pectin, which can be extracted from the cell wall cement in plants by boiling. The long, stringlike pectin molecules bind a liquid into a solid by bonding to each other and forming a meshwork that traps the liquid in its interstices. Some fruits, including grapes and most berries, are rich enough in pectin to produce excellent gels on their own, while others, including apricots, peaches and strawberries, need a supplemental source. Preserve makers can buy powdered pectin that has been extracted from apple cores and parings or from the intermediate white layer, or albedo, of citrus fruits. Or they can make their own extract by simmering lemon slices that have been lightly pared.
Now, I've been called hardcore. I hung
curing pancetta in my bedroom for three weeks. But simmering your own pectin extract is that extra step I'm not willing to take. I bought a product called SureJell, subtitled '100% Natural Premium Fruit Pectin', which I thought was a grand title for boiled apple cores. Each box came with a long, full color flier with instructions for various jamming techniques. After looking through a few grape jelly recipes, we decided to roll with the one straight out of the box.
Grape JellyGood grape jelly should taste like good grape juice, so I grabbed an all natural red grape juice by Welch's that said it had no sugar, flavorings, colors or preservatives added.
I cut the recipe to 1/5, figuring I couldn't use 8 cups of grape jelly no matter how hard I tried. These are the amounts from the original recipe. From the SureJell 100% Natural Premium Fruit Pectin Cooked Jam and Jelly Directions pamphlet.
Ingredients
5 cups prepared juice
7 cups sugar
1 box pectin
Measure exact amount of sugar into a bowl. Pour exact amount of juice into a large sauce pot. The jelly will foam up when boiling, so you need a lot of headroom and a wide bottom to keep it from boiling over. Stir in the box of pectin and bring the mixture to a rolling boil over high heat.
Stir in the sugar quickly and return to a rolling boil. Cook for 1 full minute, stirring constantly and then remove from heat. I poured the jelly into jars and set them out to cool. I wasn't canning anything and I knew they would all end up in the refrigerator, but they looked so cool on the window sill I left them there until they were room temperature.
It takes 24 hours for the jelly to set properly, and it was damn good the next day, more like the juice it came from than the vague 'purple flavor' of the last jar of Welch's grape jelly I bought. They've got to be using their own juice, but maybe what isn't fit for selling as all natural juice for a glass is sent to be cooked down in the jelly factory. Whatever the case, I made more grape jelly in 20 minutes than I eat in six months, so my non-existent grape jelly dilemma is completely solved.
HOWEVER, the revelation event, the Big Bang of my jelly making experience, was an adjustment of this basic grape jelly recipe. It is presented below, with the measurements I used, in all it's glory.
Mike's Spiced Blackberry-Grape JellyHoly crap, will somebody please pass a biscuit?
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups grape jelly
1 cup blackberries, mashed into a paste
3 1/2 cups sugar, measured into a bowl
1/2 box pectin
1 tbl ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground clove
1 tsp ground allspice
Pour the juice and blackberry mash into a large sauce pot. Stir in the spices and the box of pectin and bring the mixture to a rolling boil over high heat.
Stir in the sugar quickly and return to a rolling boil. Cook for 1 full minute, stirring constantly and then remove from heat.
The spices set this jelly apart from any other I've ever tasted, but the blackberries are what made it really special. It feels dumb to talk about grape jelly the way people talk about wine, but the hints of berry, including the visual of the seeds sprinkled through the jar, give this jelly layers of flavor that don't all come out at once. I noticed the spices first, then the tasty grape jelly base, but somewhere shortly into the first bite I got a little blackberry and suddenly I felt like I was eating something I'd never had before.
This batch is now My Favorite Jelly Ever, a prize I created just for it.
Preserving PeppersAnother jelly you see occasionally is pepper jelly. The produce store at the Chelsea Market was having a sale on bushels and bushels of red, yellow and orange hot peppers when we went to buy fruit, so the decision was kind of made for me. I cut the recipe in half, but it is presented here with the original amounts.
From Epicurean.com. Here's a
link.
Ingredients
1 cup ground sweet red peppers
1/2 cup ground long hot peppers or substitute 1/4 cup habañero peppers for an extra hot jelly
6 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
6 oz fruit pectin
Core and puree the peppers, including seeds. Combine peppers, sugar, vinegar and salt in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring regularly. Pour in the pectin and bring to a boil. Lower heat and continue to stir until you feel the mixture start to thicken.
This made a delicious jelly, but my peppers weren't hot enough. The combination of vinegar, sugar and peppers is really good, a weird, bright flavor that doesn't do much for bread but has been fantastic with pork chops and chicken so far.
Pepper jelly, seeds intact.
The other pepper concoction we cooked up was from
The Family Circle Cookbook from 1974, page 709. It's short, so I'll quote the whole thing.
Sweet Pepper-And-Orange Jam
This is an unusual sweet-sour jam.
25 red peppers (about 6 pounds)
1 large seedless orange, peeled and cut into pieces
4 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups cider vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
1. Wash peppers; cut in half; remove seeds and white membranes; cut into large pieces; put through food chopper using coarsest blade.
2. Drain peppers well and discard liquid. Grind orange.
3. Combine peppers, orange, sugar, vinegar and salt in a large kettle. Bring quickly to boil, stirring. Cook over high heat, stirring often, 30 minutes, or just until thick and clear as jam; don't overcook.
4. Ladle into 7 hot, sterilized, 8-ounce glasses. Seal, as manufacturer directs. Label; date; store in cool, dry place. Makes 7 glasses.
I had a variety of issues with this jam. First of all, I don't need 7 glasses so I cut the recipe to 1/4 and used 6 red bell peppers. Second, I don't have a food chopper or even know what one is to be honest. So I cut the peppers up coarse and threw in a couple jalepeños and a red onion for good measure. Here it is on the stove:
Apparently the coarsest blade on a food chopper still gets things much smaller than my basic dice, because I didn't make much of a jelly. I don't know what to call the dish I ended up with, it's more of a jellied pepper slaw, to combine a few terms that don't really go together. Whatever you call it, I just spooned some out onto a Reuben so it turned out pretty good.
Chutneys and ButtersPredictably, we ended up making a few other things that were listed in the Sauces and Condiments section of the refrigerator jam book. A couple pages before the jam recipe were two chutneys that were irresistible and a recipe for apple butter. I've never been able to walk away from apple butter, but I'd never made it myself. This had to change.
These recipes are all reproduced as printed on pages 644-645 of
The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, which, conveniently, my mother bought Rachel and I both for xmas this year, so I have it here to reproduce from. Thanks, mom.
Spicy Mango Chutney
Makes about 2 cups
Prep time: 10 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes plus 1 hour cooling time
1 tbl unsalted butter
2 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp dry mustard
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp cinnamon
Pinch cloves
2 mangoes, peeled, pitted, and chopped medium
1 red onion, minced
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar, plus extra for seasoning
1 garlic clove, minced
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup raisins
Salt and pepper
1. Melt the butter in a large nonreactive (stainless steel, nonstick, or enameled) saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the ginger, mustard, cayenne, cinnamon, and cloves and cook, stirring, until aromatic, about 2 minutes. Stir in the mangoes, onion, brown sugar, and garlic and cook until the sugar begins to melt and caramelize, about 3 minutes.
2. Stir in the water, vinegar and raisins and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thickened, about 10 minutes.
3. Off the heat, season with brown sugar (if needed), and salt and pepper to taste. Cool to room temperature before serving, about 1 hour.
Green Apple Chutney with Apricots and Ginger
Makes about 5 cups
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes plus 1 hour cooling time
1 tbl vegetable oil
1 onion, halved and sliced thin
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped medium
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped medium
1/2 jalapeño chile, stemmed, seeded, and minced
1 tbl grated ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup orange juice
Salt and pepper
1. Heat the oil in a large nonreactive saucepan over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the apples, tomato, apricots, jalapeño, ginger, and garlic. Cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes.
2. Stir in the vinegar, brown sugar, and orange juice and simmer until the juices have thickened, 25 to 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cool to room temperature before serving, about 1 hour.
Apple Butter
Makes about 2 cups
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 50 minutes plus 1 hour cooling time
2 1/2 pounds McIntosh or Golden Delicious apples (5 to 6), peeled, cored, and sliced thin
1 cup apple cider
1/2 cup sugar, plus extra for seasoning
1 tsp grated ginger
1. Combine all of the ingredients in a large saucepan and simmer slowly, stirring often, until the apples have broken down into a dark, creamy mixture, about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
2. Process the cooked apple mixture in a food processor until smooth, about 5 seconds. Season with sugar to taste. Cool to room temperature before serving, about 1 hour.
I used a spiced apple cider and then added cinnamon to the mix, so mine was a little sharper than the recipe called for. It was easily the best apple butter I've ever had and I finished it off within two days, mostly with a spoon, straight from the jar.
Last but not least - Champagne JellyThis one was a spur of the moment decision. We were at the liquor store anyway, they had champagne for $10 a bottle. I don't know. I'd never even heard of champagne jelly, but we were back home making it before the first drink was poured. Then we had champagne to toast our jelly day with, so it all made it's own kind of sense before we were done.
The recipe is short, so I'll quote the whole thing. From
The Family Circle Cookbook from 1974, page 708.
Champagne Jelly
The ultimate gift in preserves.
1 bottle (4/5 pint size) champagne (1 2/3 cups)
Or 1 2/3 cups dry white wine
1 1/3 cups orange juice
4 cups sugar
1 bottle (6 ounces) liquid fruit pectin
1. Combine champagne or wine, orange juice and sugar in top of a double boiler. Place over boiling water; cook, stirring constantly, until sugar is dissolved. Continue cooking until very hot, about 5 minutes; skim off foam on top.
2. Remove from heat; stir in liquid fruit pectin. Mix well.
3. Ladle into 6 hot, sterilized, 8-ounce glasses. Seal, following the manufacturer's directions. Label and date; store in the refrigerator. Jelly takes a week or longer to set firmly. Makes six 8-ounce glasses.
We had a couple of problems with this recipe, mostly stemming from my lack of a proper double boiler. After I completely ruined the first batch, we poured enough champagne back out of our glasses to make up 1 cup of liquid. I combined that with a squirt of lime juice so the pectin had acid to work with, 3/4 cup of sugar, 1 ounce of powdered pectin and strawberry slices. It seems like it worked:
That's the champagne on the left and the blackberry-grape on the right.
It hasn't been a week yet, so the champagne jelly is still a little syrupy. But it is a damn tasty syrup, very, very sweet. I'm letting it set upside down so the strawberries will be at the bottom when it's done. A little treat, eh? Everybody loves a treat.
Alright, that's enough jams and jellies. If anyone actually missed me posting on the blog, I figure this one oughta make up for the whole month of January.
I've been rolling it out and cutting it into bits. If it starts to come apart on you, dip it into the whey, which should still be sitting over medium heat on the stove. The cheese will start to warm through and coagulate, but don't leave it too long or it can melt. I have been rolling it out, cutting off chunks and dipping the chunks for a few moments before they go into the jar to rest.
