Bog Roll :: stuff/food/jam

Yesterday I made a batch of jam using Mr Miot's method. It's based on his standard method which is different from the method I've used myself previously.

• 1 Kg Rhubarb (frozen then defrosted)
• 0.8 Kg Sugar
• ½ a lemon (frozen then defrosted)
• 200 ml rhubarb juice (from the defrosted 1 Kg)
• 250 g crystallised ginger (my addition, not in the French original)

First you freeze the lemon and the chopped and cleaned rhubarb. Freezing and defrosting the lemon should ease the extraction of pectin for setting the jam. Freezing and defrosting the rhubarb should extract water juices from it, keep just 200 ml.

Heat the sugar, juice from the lemon and the lemon along with the rhubarb juice up to boiling point (121°C). Once it's rolling along add the chopped rhubarb and return to the boiling point. Boil hard for a further 15 minutes (give or take) and then add the ginger. After removing any scum and a a few more minutes it should be ready to pot.

I jammed 2.2 Kg of rhubarb with 1.76 Kg sugar, two small lemons and 0.5 Kg of chopped crystalised ginger. Tasted okay on the night, but rhubarb and ginger takes a few days to reach full flavour.

• Mr Miot's jam method
• my previous rhubarb jams

posted 22:46 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Yesterday we went to a local PYO farm to collect fruit for jamming. As much as we love redcurrant jelly we decided to skip it for this year and try something new - so I spent £15 on mostly strawberries.

Strawberries are terrible to jam, they are low in pectin, high in water and (in the shops in the UK) low in flavour. If it were not for the national obsession with them, no one in their right mind would bother with them...

I decided to use the recipe of Francis Miot, who is some top French jam maker:

• 700 g strawberries (fraises)
• 350 g redcurrants (groseilles) - you are supposed to remove the pips with a goose quill but we skipped this...
• 200 g water (d'eau) - it seemed an awful lot but it did turn out okay
• 1/2 lemon (citron décongelé) - ideally frozen and defrosted
• 800 g sugar (sucre blanc) - does not need added pectin
• 30 ml red wine (vin rouge) - we skipped this as we don't drink wine

The method is his standard method. First heat the sugar, water and lemon (squeezed juice and whole fruit) up to a full boil (121°C), then you add your topped and halved strawberries and (deseeded) redcurrants and bring back to a full boil. You then boil on full heat for 20 minutes before potting into hot cleaned jars as normal.

For best flavour do not add butter, remove the scum with a slotted jam spoon instead. Don't soak your fruit overnight in sugar as it draws out too much water - or so Mr Miot says.

We started with 2.1 Kg strawberries and 1.05 Kg redcurrants and yielded 13 (full) 370 g Bonne Maman jars. This morning we opened a jar to test - VERY GOOD!

posted 22:56 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

I've done three batches of jam this spring. So far I've done a batch of champagne rhubarb, rhubarb and ginger and today a batch of rhubarb and orange marmalade. Recipes as previous years, though I did cut the sugar levels down this year as previous years have been very sweet and if you can increase the fruit levels it's worth it.

• Rhubarb and Ginger Jam (III)
• 14 kg of Rhubarb Marmalade!
• Late Rhubarb Jam
• Rhubarb and Ginger Jam (II)
• Rhubarb and Orange Marmalade (II)
• Rhubarb and Orange Marmalade
• Rhubarb and Ginger Jam

posted 18:29 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Today I made three batches of jam. I am now full of enough sugar to power a Tour de France bike rider up an Aple. I started with 2 Kg or redcurrant juice to which I added 2 kg of sugar to make 9 jars of jelly. Next it was a kilo of rhubarb, 500 g of crystallised ginger and a kilo of sugar to make 6 jars of jam. Finally 2 Kg of rhubarb, a kilo of oranges and 2.2 Kg of sugar make 12 jars of marmalade. Should keep the household running another year.

It's taken so much of my day up that I've still not had time to get NFSv4 working with Kerberos 5. I've just had enough time to join together kinit, telnet.krb5 and ksshaskpass.

posted 20:00 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Today I went to a friend's garden to pick his surplus rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum or Rheum x hybridum.). I collected over 4 Kg, of which 3 Kg is now soaking in sugar and lemon juice in the fridge.

After lunch we went to the nearby PYO farm on the hunt for redcurrants (Ribes rubrum) and strawberries (Fragaria spp.). They were out of strawberries, which is a bit odd as there should still be plenty and last year at this time they were over run with them. The redcurrants had also been picked hard (and very poorly), which made picking them a pain but we were easily able to collect over 3.5 Kg of red and white currants. Except a few kept for eating the currants are simply mashed up and filtered to make jelly.

Tomorrow I plan to make one batch of redcurrants jelly, one batch of rhubarb and ginger jam and one batch of rhubarb and orange marmalade.

posted 18:14 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

At the Sheep Fair we sold all our jam, after materials the OBS made a profit of over £100 on the jam. Even after the event people have been asking to buy jam and I have to keep telling people it's all gone, all 20 kg of it!

posted 12:46 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Today we made 6.5 kg of rhubarb and ginger jam. We used the same recipe as originally rather than last years variant where you peel the rhubarb. Peeling the rhubarb before jamming it is the "Victorian" method which apparently tastes better. Leaving the "skin" of the rhubarb on does however change the colour of the jam from green to ruby red. I'm not sure it make much difference but not peeling makes the whole process quicker and easier, but you need pristine rhubarb.

posted 21:15 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Over the weekend I made a mega batch of rhubarb marmalade, all told with rhubarb, oranges and sugar it came to over 14 kg of final product. It was so much it had to be done in two batches!

The method was as last year. Tonight I'll make some rhubarb and ginger jam.

When it's all done it will go on sale at Overton's 2008 Sheep Fair to raise money for the Overton Biodiversity Society.

posted 19:00 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Last weekend we were given some very late rhubarb. Today I turned chopped rhubarb into rhubarb jam. It was a similar method to the earlier rhubarb and ginger: soak overnight in sugar and lemon juice then cook too jamming point. I ran out of sugar, so the mixture was 2.5 Kg of fruit, 2 Kg of sugar and the juice of one lemon. The yield was a surprising 10 full pots plus three micro-pots, more than I expected. Apparently late season rhubarb is better for jamming, we shall see when we taste it, once it has reached full maturity in a few weeks.

posted 23:27 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Today, rather later than expected, I completed this year's batch of rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum) and ginger (Zingiber officinale) jam.

The rhubarb crop was much delayed this year, we had a very hot and dry spring where the rhubarb didn't grow at all. The summer has been cool and damp so the rhubarb has grown well at long last - three months later than last year!

We got 2.7 kg of prepared stalks, to which I added 2.7 kg of sugar, the juice of three lemons and 300 g of chopped crystallised ginger. The yield was a whisker under 12x370 g jars. I've promised a few jars to friends in the village, but even so I should have plenty to keep me going until next spring.

posted 20:44 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Today was redcurrant (Ribes rubrum) jelly day. We went to a local PYO farm. We collected about 2 Kg of redcurrants but it was a bit slow going as people don't pick them properly and make a mess. We then tried the whitecurrants (which are just colourless red) which people don't pick and were quickly able to collect a further 1 Kg of fruit.

We used the same method as previous years which resulted in 9x370g jars of ruby red jelly. The whitecurrants in the mix do not change the flavour but they do make it a little less red and more pink.

The yield was a little lower than last year when 3 Kg of fruit yielded 2 Kg of juice and 10 jars of jelly but it's still plenty to keep us going. Next weekend is rhubarb and ginger jam!

posted 22:55 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

We returned from our sumer holiday in Scotland and found that the birds had eaten the raspberries, redcurrants and strawberries, but the fenced-in blackcurrants (Ribes nigrum) had survived. On Sunday we picked about 3 kg of fruit and today I turned them into jelly.

The method is as with redcurrants, mash up the cleaned fruit with some water in a big pan, filter overnight and then add sugar in a ratio of 1:1 with the juices and boil to the jamming point. We got about 1.4 kg of juice to which I added 1.4 kg of sugar which produced 6.75 jars (Bonne Maman 370 g) of jelly.

posted 23:50 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Yesterday I made some rhubarb and orange jam. I stuck with last year's excellent recipe for this batch. If we get some more rhubarb I'll may do a batch with less orange for a more rhubarby flavour. This year I had about an extra 150g of fruit in the batch so it made 6x370g pots plus an extra jar of about 250g.

posted 10:20 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

Today I made pumpkin marmalade. You take half a kilo of pumpkin, four washed oranges, two washed lemons, and four peeled carrots. Chop everything up and add three quarters of a kilo of sugar, allow it to stand overnight. Tip the mixture into a jam pan and heat to the jam point. It filled 4 pots. I'm not 100% convinced it was a great recipe.

I also made some scones. I had this sudden urge to make scones this afternoon. It's hard to get good scones down south, other than a friend who makes good ones, most of the ones I've had in the past few years have been rubbery and taste of raising agent. I made mine to a traditional northern recipe but added dried cranberries as well as sultanas. They came out very yummy.

posted 21:28 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^

After a great deal of effort we have finally finished off the jamming for this year. I'm not sure what the best conserve of the year has been, but I know the best of each category.

Best Jelly

For the second year running, Red Current Jelly wins as a clear sharp jelly, with excellent flavour, good yield and easy preparation.

Best Jam

Damson Jam a clear winner. Excellent flavour and texture, and a good yield. Labour intensive to make but well worth the effort.

Best Marmalade

Rhubarb and Orange Marmalade from this spring. It's the only marmalade I made this year but it was very good and I do plan to make it again.

Others

The apple and damson jam is quite nice. It spreads well and is worth making again. It's much easier to make than the whole damson jam, but the flavour is no way near as intense.

The apple and caramel we made was interesting to do and looks impressive. I don't think I like the flavour though, so I don't plan to make it again, especially as it was a lot of effort to make.

Rhubarb and Ginger Jam is very nice, and by far the most popular - everyone wants that one. As we will probably get lots of rhubarb again next year I will make this one again as well as the rhubarb/orange marmalade.

posted 20:50 :: /stuff/food/jam :: permalink :: ^