Category: Jam, marmalade, chutney

I was nervous about jam and jelly until a friend said these immortal words ‘if it doesn’t set, pour it back in the pot and boil it some more’. That and a new sugar thermometer and I was off. We’ve had a great strawberry season in the UK – at one point strawberries were £2 per kilo ($1.15 per pound weight for los Americanos). I found sugar at a good price and I have made a lot of jam.

Don’t worry the Davinator will not be at risk from strawberry jam poisoning. The same friend doesn’t make strawberry jam or jelly so we have an exchange programme – I’ll trade strawberry jam and crab apple jelly for whisky marmalade and damson jam. Plus I take away her crab apples and make jelly with those. Crab apple jelly (recipe here) is the best combo with peanut butter.

Strawberry jam is traditionally ‘macerated’ overnight. Maceration means you cut up the strawberries, combine them with sugar and pectin and leave them to do their thing. Next morning they are floating in strawberry juice and ready to cook and jar up.

If you’re new to preserving, do your homework first. Youtube is full of ‘jam for beginners’ videos and there is a legion of blogs. My recommendation is to identify your ‘method’ and stick to it. I was making jam, jelly and preserves from a young age – my sisters and I were mom’s kitchen slaves. So I come to this with a fair amount of experience. Your first jam experience may well leave your kitchen looking like a bomb went off but every time after that it improves.

Gadgets do help with jam. Below left is my 2 bowl scale for weighing sugar and pectin separately and below right is a gadget that takes the stem and slightly fibrous centre out of the strawberries in one smooth movement. See the short video I made here.

The other gadget I highly recommend is a proper sugar thermometer – old school analogue that clips to the side of the pan. This is my new KitchenCraft. (other brands are available). It’s predecessor was so old that the numbers were unreadable. Why analogue? You will stand there waiting for your jam to hit 105C and you don’t want to be dipping your high tech digital gadget every 10 seconds. And there’s no annoying tiny battery that is always dead just because it is and it’s not a size you have. Trust me on this one.

Let’s get on to the recipe. My instructions assume some experience but not a jam maestro level.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 kilo of strawberries

750 grams sugar

Pectin

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Jars and lids for approximately 1,000 mls of jam.

Instructions

1. 12 hours before (at least – I leave mine for 36 hours) hull your strawberries and cut large ones in half. If you’ve got giant ones, maybe 4 pieces. But the lovely thing about this jam is the chunks of strawberries so don’t go too small.
2. Get your sugar and pectin ready. I use plain sugar and add powdered pectin. Pectin is necessary for this jam. You can also use liquid pectin or jam sugar which has pectin included. My preferred pectin has me adding 8 grams per kilo combined fruit and sugar so 12 -15 grams for this recipe.
3. Stir the sugar and pectin into the fruit to coat well – avoid the temptation to eat the sugared strawberries. I use a ceramic bowl, I’m always nervous about letting fruit juice sit in a metal bowl. Cover loosely with a shower cap or plastic wrap.
   ************************** Next Day *******************************
4. Find your jars, lids, jam funnel, tongs, ladle, wax circles, gloves for handling hot jars.
5. Sterilise your jars – I run mine through the dishwasher and then put them in the oven at about 130C in a baking pan. I take the pan out and leave the jars in it as I fill them – it contains any mess. I put the lids in boiling water with the jam funnel then lift them out with tongs as I go.
6. Tip the strawberry sugar mixture into a heavy pan – I use one of my le Creuset pots. Add the lemon juice and set over a low heat. Dissolve all of the sugar before you turn the heat up or you may have sugar lumps in your jam.
7. Sugar all dissolved, it’s time for the scary part – boiling the jam mixture until it reaches 105C (220F) on your thermometer. There are other methods for checking the set – here’s one from BBC Goodfood. Personally I prefer the thermometer. n
8. As the jam is boiling you can skim any scum that has risen to the top. Use a metal spoon, only do this once near the end – it reduces wastage.
9. Your jam is ready to put in the jars – I have a pair of oven mittens that I use for this step (see photo below – gift from one of my sisters in Michigan) because they are flexible enough to allow me to use the ladle and tongs and insulated enough to protect my hands and wrists. Fill your jars, top with wax circles or liquid paraffin. Put the lids on and tighten as soon as you can handle the jars.
10. Label your jars and remember to put the date on them. Your jam should last a year stored in a cool dark place. Refrigerate after opening is recommended. Jam doesn’t last long enough in this house to need that, though.

Don’t be tempted to double batch the recipe. It will be difficult to reach the correct temperature without scorching the jam. I tend to have two batches ‘working’ at the same time. One coming up to the boil and the other on a gentle simmer to dissolve the sugar.

Thank you for reading the blog – sorry its been so intermittent, it’s been a busy social and sporting summer here in England. Let me know if you try the recipes and have any feedback – I did leave out a crucial step in herby courgette bread until someone pointed out that at no point did it tell you to add the grated courgettes 😳.

Last year we got very little fruit from our apple and crab apple trees; this year the crop is bountiful but seems to be dropping early because of the warm and dry conditions here. Making jelly is time consuming and experience helps – but it’s like putting summer sunshine in a jar. Apple or crab apple jelly is the finest companion to peanut butter ever invented. Get away with your grape jelly or marshmallow Fluff.

If you’re new to preserving, do your homework first. Youtube is full of ‘jelly for beginners’ and there is a legion of blogs. My recommendation is to identify your ‘method’ and stick to it. I was making jam, jelly and preserves from a young age – my sisters and I were our mother’s kitchen slaves. And I remember making (and eating) lots of crab apple jelly because my grandparents had a big and bountiful crab apple tree. So I come to this with a fair amount of experience but a friend gave me a copy of her favourite preserving book by Thane Prince. I have found it a helpful guide and reference tool and I stick with it as a method.

Making preserves reminds me that all cooking is basically conducting chemistry experiments and then feeding the results to people.

Jelly is made by cooking and straining fruit to make juice, then adding sugar and cooking the juice into jelly that will ‘set’, putting it in sterilised jars, topping with paraffin and then sealing up. It keeps well for six to nine months. Making jelly means the fruit can be roughly handled, does not need to be ‘pretty’ (keep the pretty apples to eat) and is suitable for fruit from your own trees.

Ingredients to make approximately 5 x 330 ml jars:

• 3 kilos of apples or crab apples
• 2.5 litres of water (roughly 830 mls per kilo of fruit)
• 500 grams of sugar for every 600 mls of fruit juice
• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice for every 600 mls of fruit juice
• fresh rosemary if you’re feeling fancy; 1 sprig for every jar plus the rest for cooking with the fruit

Steps in the process:

• assemble equipment
• prep and cook fruit
• drain the juice from the cooked fruit (overnight)
• measure the juice, add sugar, lemon juice (and pectin depending type of fruit and degree of ripeness)
• cook until set
• put in sterilised jars, top and seal
• offer a sacrifice to the kitchen gods that your jelly ‘sets’ well but not too tight

If you’re still reading, it’s time to go on to the recipe.

Method

1. Assemble your equipment
   – preserving pan, heavy, wider than it is deep. I use a 30 cm cast iron enamel le Creuset pan
   – a jelly bag stand (see photo below) and several jelly bags
   – a scale and a couple of big Pyrex glass measuring jugs (see photo below)
   – a jar funnel (see photo below)
   – spoons; wooden, metal and a slotted spoon for removing scum (trust me)
   – jars, lids and if needed either wax or cellophane covers to seal (lids with rubber or plastic sealing rings mean no need for waxed paper circles, cellophane or paraffin wax). I use paraffin wax on jelly.
   
2. Prep and cook fruit
   – rinse apples, rough chop, cut out any visible rot or insect incursions
   – place in pan, cover with water, add rosemary if using
   – bring to a boil, turn the heat down, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until the apples are pulpy
   – spoon into a jelly bag, hang to drain overnight or for at least six hours DO NOT SQUISH THE FRUIT TO GET MORE JUICE QUICKLY. It will make your jelly cloudy. No, I don’t know why but I have experiential learning that says this bit of jelly wisdom is true.
   
3. Measure your juice into the preserving pan, add sugar and lemon juice. Bring it slowly to the boil, stirring to dissolve all the sugar. I do add a drop or two of food colouring if I don’t like the colour of the juice. Err on the side of caution – it impacts your chemistry experiment.
   
4. Multi-task and get your jars and lids sterilised and covers ready. I put my clean jars in a cool oven and turn it up to 150C. I put the paraffin wax in a metal jug at the same time. Finally I put the lids, the jelly funnel, the ladle and the tongs in a pan of boiling water on the stove. It works for me.
   
5. Your jars are ready and your juice is starting to boil. Now, it’s time to be brave. Bring it to a rolling boil (boiling sugar is a hazard and this step can be scary – be careful) and boil it for at least five minutes. Back it down and skim off the scum. I use a big spoon with lots of holes in it and it dip it in a bowl of hot water to clean it. DO NOT STIR THE SCUM BACK IN. Or it will make your jelly cloudy.
   
6. Do your first test for a set – I use the flake test. Scoop up a small amount of jelly in a wooden spoon. Count to 10. Tilt the spoon to pour the jelly back into the pot. If the final part forms a flake and not a stream, it’s ready. Google is your friend – find a method that works for you.
   
7. My jelly never seems to be ready at the first test. I do a second rolling boil for 2 minutes, then skim and test again. Repeat until your jelly is ready. Best advice I was ever given – if you pot up your jelly and it does not set, you can always empty the jars into a clean pan and give it another boil. (This is a statement of genius from my friend who makes amazing preserves). So don’t sweat this one.
   
8. Your jelly is ready! Carefully fill your jars: I take the pan of jars from the oven, use the sterilised tongs to move the funnel and the jars around (keep the water boiling and dip them), fill the jars with a ladle, then top with liquid paraffin wax and gently put the lids on with the tongs.
   
9. You cannot judge the ‘set’ until the jelly is completely cool. Control your anxiety and give it overnight.

And enjoy your jelly. Thank you for reading the blog, subscribing, cooking the recipes. Tag me on Twitter and Instagram if you post photos @mamadolson on both.

This is the most foolproof recipe for jam or jelly that I’ve ever made. If you’ve got citrus fruit, sugar and some jars you are more than half way home. It’s a good recipe for a newbie or a nervous jam maker because the ‘setting’ is very reliable.

Why a marmalade recipe from someone who lives in England? Citrus is technically never in season here. But there is a long association between these cool and damp islands and the traditional citrus based preserves that are marmalade.

Legend has it that a ship load of Seville oranges ran aground in Dundee in Scotland. The scavengers scooped up the oranges and then cooked them with sugar until it ‘jellied’ to protect their loot. That story has been debunked but the first ever factory to produce marmalade was in Dundee, opened in 1797.

The corona virus lockdown has propelled me into making marmalade on two fronts; we have excess citrus fruit and a shortage of jam.

We get our fruit and vegetables from a delivery service – Abel & Cole. Adore them but they’ve made adaptations to their service during the lockdown so you get your fruit and veg box and can’t edit out or in specific items. Also the Davinator has been the one to brave the queue system at Waitrose (posh supermarket for Americans). He is prone to going ‘off list’ and coming home with things that ‘looked yummy’. Et voila, there is excess of oranges.

One of my best friends lives in Devon and makes the best jam, marmalade and preserves and is generous with gifting them to friends. We don’t actually go down to see them when we’re about to run out of jam and marmalade – but it might SEEM that way. We had been scheduled to visit at Easter and our stocks had run low. Then corona. And the Davinator was down to one jar of courgette marmalade, one jar of chutney and we opened the last jar of strawberry jam.

We had a need for marmalade, we had oranges and sugar and I had the empty jars I had been saving to return to my jam making friend. And that’s all you need for ingredients. A couple of pieces of equipment help a great deal: a food processor for chopping, a deep kettle for the boiling marmalade and jam funnel.

You won’t make elegant jewel toned marmalade with artistic shreds of peel with my recipe. But it will work (i.e. jell) and it will look and taste great. And it’s a great time saver. The prep takes about 10 minutes, including getting out your food processor and it takes about 30 minutes to cook. While it’s cooking you can prep your jars, sterilise your lids and wash up the food processor.

Ready to marmelise?

Recipe

Makes 1.75 litres of jam, say 5 normal jam jars. You could do one or two very large jars as well. It keeps.

Ingredients

900 grams (2 pounds) of citrus fruit: oranges, lemons, grapefruit, clementines, satsumas. All of one kind or mix and match. You can use one or two limes but don’t go full lime – too bitter. That’s about six medium sized oranges.

1 kilogram (2 pounds, 2 ounces) of sugar (caster – UK, granulated – US)

Crystallised ginger, a generous handful if desired.

Method

1. Wash the fruit, quarter it, remove seeds or pips with the tip of a knife. Cut off any blemishes in the rind and I also cut off the stem end. Throw it all in the food processor or blender with the ginger if you’re including ginger. If using the blender, do 2 or 3 batches. Process until its quite small chunks.
2. Put in a deep sturdy cooking pot with the sugar. Over low heat, melt the sugar while stirring. Bring to a boil, back it down to a simmer with big bubbles popping on the surface. Keep stirring from time to time and scrape down the sides of the pot into the jam. It needs to be bubbling away for 25 to 30 minutes.
3. Prep your jars. I sterilise all preserve jars, including jam jars although some argue that the boiling preserves kill all bacteria. I’m indifferent to germs most of the time but I sterilise the jars and the lids. Here’s a link to the easiest method – bake them in the oven. The video also has a reasonable alternative to the jam funnel – transfer your marmalade to a sterilised jug to pour it into the jars. Also works well. Use a glass or metal jug and be aware that it should be sterilised too. The handle may get hot.
4. Your marmalade should be coating and jelling on the back of a metal spoon now. Go ahead and fill your jars. If you’re a nervous jam maker – have plenty of clean tea towels (dish towels), oven mitts and sterilised tongs to put the lids on. Get ready and fill your jars.
5. This recipe works because of the amount of the pectin in the rind of the fruit so it is quite reliable. But here’s a top tip from my jam making friend – if it does not jell, empty the jars back into a saucepan and boil it for another 10 minutes. If your jam sets too ‘tight’ you might need to heat it to use it but it’s absolutely lovely gently warmed and poured over pancakes or waffles.

I hope you enjoy your marmalade. Thank you for reading, commenting, subscribing, sharing and for cooking the recipes.

My homage to Paul Simon, folks.  This blog post does not have 50 recipes for your courgettes (neither does the song list the 50 ways) but it should help you use your produce.

 What is it about courgettes that make them so prolific? They must be hardy enough to resist ambivalent (and lazy) gardeners (like me).  My first year, I put in six, yes six courgette plants.  OMG – did we have a lot of courgettes.  Now I plant three.  Some bit of ancient vegetable growing wisdom I have retained says three is the minimum number for pollination purposes.   Even three produce a lot of courgettes most years.

I really hate to throw away food I grew myself.  I have therefore accumulated a number of ways to prepare, preserve and eat courgettes.

 Here’s my round up of ideas and some specific recipes to make eating courgettes a joy not a chore. Hopefully, something for everyone. All of these recipes I’ve test cooked and the Davinator has eaten. 

1.  KISS – keep it simple, spiralize.  A spiralizer (many choices for less than £10 on Amazon) turns your vegetables into noodles.  Sautéed in butter, added to soups, salads and stir fry. Cover them with your favourite pasta sauce.  This is super use of the squash, especially when you harvest early and don’t let them turn into seed filled giants.
   
2. Just eat your vegetables.  Slice into 5 millimetre pieces, then chop in half.  Cook in boiling water or steam for 2 to 5 minutes depending on size and your preferences on the texture of your vegetables.  Alternatively, cut 1 inch slices and quarter these. Sauté in butter with a few chilli flakes and salt and peppel. Divine.
   
3. Get your revenge in first.  Make fried-courgette flowers.  Pick the flowers on stems (will never be courgettes) or small courgettes when the flowers are still attached.  You can either fry the flowers with the small courgettes attached or separate them and cook them separately.   Recipe link here: <fried courgette blossoms>
    
4. Use your weapon of mass consumption.  There’s nothing like chutney to use up large and diverse amounts of fruit and vegetables.  Sugar, vinegar, spices, onions and then a squash, a vegetable and a fruit component.  Here’s my recipe – <courgette chutney>.
   
5. Do it doughnut style.  Baked chocolate courgette doughnuts are about the healthiest doughnuts you can make and eat.  Of course, ‘healthiest’ doughnuts maybe a low bar but this recipe produces crowd pleasing treats – <chocolate courgette doughnuts>.
   
6. Put summer in a jar.  Courgette marmalade with ginger and lemon tastes like summer when you open it in November or gift it to good friends at Christmas time. This is not a recipe for newbies to making jam and marmalade but if you’re not intimidated by boiling sugar go for it.  Link here:  <spiced courgette marmalade>.
   
7. Hide the vegetables by burying them in deep dark chocolate cake. It’s all in the name.  This is a favourite of family, friends and co-workers.  So rich, it doesn’t need any icing or topping but you can go wild and slather it in whipped cream.  Link here. <deep dark chocolate cake>.
   
8. Pixar it up. One of my favourite Pixar movies is Ratatouille.  And you don’t have to be a Parisian rat to make awesome ratatouille.  Most cooks have a favourite recipe but ratatouille is very flexible. The core ingredients are courgette, aubergine, tomatoes and peppers.  Here’s a basic recipe that uses canned tomatoes but if you’ve got a glut go ahead and use them.  I would peel and core the tomatoes if you’re using fresh.  Link here: easy and flexible ratatouille.
   
9. Quickly now. Make quick whole wheat courgette bread.  It’s simple and quick and makes a good on the go breakfast treat. Link here: <whole wheat courgette bread>.
   
10. Round up……. Time to use your imagination and Google: courgette fritters, courgette terrine, courgette soup, tomato courgette spaghetti sauce.  Frittata with courgettes is one of my favourites. Link here: < frittata with courgettes>
    
11. Soup it up. Here’s the best courgette soup recipe I’ve found.
    
12. Get grilling. This is my new favourite grilled vegetable recipe.
    
13. Courgette and herb pilaf, you’ll never notice the courgettes.

Hopefully, these recipes will help you mop up the courgette tsunami and dig out from under the zucchini avalanche.  Thank you for reading the blog.   Please send comments, suggestions and requests.

You’ve made fried courgette flowers, ratatouille, chocolate courgette donuts, courgette marmalade and spiralised seemingly countless squash. What’s left? Time to make chutney. Chutney is a mixture of fruit, vegetables, vinegar, spices and enough sugar to bind it all together. It is usually eaten as a condiment (like Branston pickle or piccalilli) but I can’t swear that the Davinator has not eaten a sneaky chutney sarnie from time to time.

Like ratatouille there are an endless number of chutney recipes on the internet. And to be honest if you cook it long enough and slow enough, ingredients become chutney. This one works for me – the main ingredients seem to ripen at the same time in my garden. It’s based on a recipe from BBC GoodFood which has a wealth of practical and straightforward recipes for home cooks.

Once you’re comfortable with the recipe it’s easy to vary the component fruit and vegetables. The ‘chutney base’ is the vinegar, sugar and spices. Then it’s a squash element, a vegetable element (don’t start on tomato is actually a fruit) and a fruit element.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 500ml (17.5 fluid ounces) cider vinegar or white wine vinegar
• 400g (14 ounces) brown sugar (light or dark)
• 1 tbsp allspice
• 2 tbsp yellow mustard seed
• 3 cinnamon sticks
• 1 thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and diced very small
• 4 onions, chopped
• 1kg (2.2 pounds) courgettes (zucchini), chopped
• 1kg (2.2 pounds) tomatoes, chopped with core removed
• 4 tart eating apples, chopped
• 300g (10.5 ounces) sultanas (raisins)

Method

1. Put the vinegar, 300ml water, sugar and spices in a large deep heavy pan. Heat, stirring regularly, until the sugar dissolves .
2. Add the remaining ingredients onions, courgettes, tomatoes, apples and sultanas) with a tsp of salt.
3. Bring to a simmer then bubble away uncovered for 2 to 3 hours until darkened, thick and chutney-like. Sometimes mine takes longer. I have turned it off over night.
4. Time to sterilise the jars. If you prep 6 250 to 300 ml jars that should be plenty. You can watch this video: jam jars or wash thoroughly in very hot soapy water. Rinse in very hot water then put on a baking sheet in a 140C/fan 120C/gas 1 oven until completely dry.
5. Pour the chutney into the sterilised jars while still hot, seal and leave in a cool dark place. The recipe suggests that you wait for at least 3 weeks before opening. That recipe writer has never met the Davinator. It might improve with age, I’ve never had it stay around long enough to find out.

Thanks for reading the blog. Please let me know if you’re enjoying the recipes, send comments, photos and requests.

Spicy courgette (zucchini) marmalade, reminds you of summer when you’re eating it on toast in January.