Thursday 24 January 2019
Friday 18 January 2019
Pineapple and Passion Fruit Jam
Back in the Summer I made Pineapple and Passion Fruit Jam using Christine Ferber's technique. Using this technique the pieces retain a good shape and are on the firm side, which is excellent for topping yogurt, or putting on as a garnish for a cheesecake or other desert.
This time I wanted to make a jam more in the traditional British format for putting on brioche etc. Also I wanted to get on and make the jam just at one hit. I had bought a pineapple a few days ago, and we just did not feel like eating it fresh. Maybe it is the cold wintry weather. As I had some passionfruit 'lurking' in the fridge, marrying them seem the obvious way of preserving the fruit for a later date.
1 Medium pineapple, 550g after preparation
125g water
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of 1 lemon
3 passion fruit just the pulp, juice and seeds
400g sugar
The prepared fruit was weighed, the lemon zested, then juiced
The fruit was then chopped into smaller chunks, then put in a pan with 125g water, and the lemon zest and simmered till soft, and almost all the liquid evaporated. This took about 30 minutes.
With my wand blender I further chopped the pineapple with just three small bursts...I did not want a puree....To this I added all the other ingredients, and boiled till 105 C and the fridge test showed a skin. Three medium jars of jam.......
The taste is fresher and less sweet...but I will work on on recipe for the other technique next time there is a 'surplus' pineapple.
Sunday 13 January 2019
Seville Marmalade Nouveau
With new Seville oranges, freshly arrived, and juicy lemons, I've made my complete batch of Seville Marmalade for the year. I've decided not to 'store' oranges in the freezer to make marmalade later in the year, or buy the fruit later in the month.
This year I have refined and streamlined previous recipes and techniques.
Ratios: 1Kg Seville Oranges, the freshest and heaviest, 1 litre water, 3 lemons, 1.5 Kg Sugar
This amount of water is for chopped and prepared fruit which is first cooked in a pressure cooker for 14 minutes, and allowed to cool down slowly at room temperate.
Wash all the fruit well in warm water, drain.
Cut the oranges in half.
Squeeze all the juice over a strainer in a wide open jug or bowl
Remove all the membrane and pips, and put this on a large square of muslin
Cut the Orange skin and pith finely into the size bits you want in the marmalade.
Cut the lemons in half, and squeeze the juice over the strainer, to add to the orange juice.
For one batch this year I chopped up the lemon peel to add to the orange.
Bring up the edges of the muslin in which all the bits and pips are, and tie very securely with kitchen string.
Put all the chopped bits of peel in a large container, add the water, and add muslin bag. I used a three litre deep rectangular plastic box with lid. I then put the jug with juice on top of everything within the box, which means the bag of bits gets pushed under, put the lid on, and left it all to seep for 24 hrs. This softens the peel and allows a lot of pectin from the peel and pips to leach out into the water.
Once the soaking has taken place, put all the contents except for the jug of juice, into the pressure cooker, bring quickly to pressure and cook for 14 minutes. When it is down to room pressure, you may start the remainder of the process, or you could leave this for another few hours. Take the unopened muslin bag with its contents, and in a big sieve balanced over a bowl, twist the top, and press with a large spoon, to extract as much as the juice as possible. The other alternative is to open the bag, put the contents in a sieve, and using a spoon, try to pass a fair quantity of gooey pulp into a bowl, which is then added to the preserving pan.
I like to add the juice only after the oranges are cooked at the final stage when using the large preserving pan to boil up the fruit and sugar, as thisgives a fresher flavour to the marmalade.
Weigh the sugar in a large preserving pan. The pressure cooker is likely to be too small to allow for the rise in the boiling marmalade. Add the fresh juice together with the contents of the pressure cooker. Continue to make your marmalade in the usual way.
This batch was made with just lemon juice and no peel, along with Sevilles
The chopped lemon peel gives a marmalade with two different coloured peels. The pith on the lemon remains a little more opaque, obvious in the picture below.
The lemon peel from the other batch was used to make crystallized lemon peel to add to one of our favourite breakfast buns: lemon and ginger buns, which I have made at least five times!
This year I have refined and streamlined previous recipes and techniques.
Ratios: 1Kg Seville Oranges, the freshest and heaviest, 1 litre water, 3 lemons, 1.5 Kg Sugar
This amount of water is for chopped and prepared fruit which is first cooked in a pressure cooker for 14 minutes, and allowed to cool down slowly at room temperate.
Wash all the fruit well in warm water, drain.
Cut the oranges in half.
Squeeze all the juice over a strainer in a wide open jug or bowl
Remove all the membrane and pips, and put this on a large square of muslin
Cut the Orange skin and pith finely into the size bits you want in the marmalade.
Cut the lemons in half, and squeeze the juice over the strainer, to add to the orange juice.
For one batch this year I chopped up the lemon peel to add to the orange.
Bring up the edges of the muslin in which all the bits and pips are, and tie very securely with kitchen string.
Put all the chopped bits of peel in a large container, add the water, and add muslin bag. I used a three litre deep rectangular plastic box with lid. I then put the jug with juice on top of everything within the box, which means the bag of bits gets pushed under, put the lid on, and left it all to seep for 24 hrs. This softens the peel and allows a lot of pectin from the peel and pips to leach out into the water.
Once the soaking has taken place, put all the contents except for the jug of juice, into the pressure cooker, bring quickly to pressure and cook for 14 minutes. When it is down to room pressure, you may start the remainder of the process, or you could leave this for another few hours. Take the unopened muslin bag with its contents, and in a big sieve balanced over a bowl, twist the top, and press with a large spoon, to extract as much as the juice as possible. The other alternative is to open the bag, put the contents in a sieve, and using a spoon, try to pass a fair quantity of gooey pulp into a bowl, which is then added to the preserving pan.
I like to add the juice only after the oranges are cooked at the final stage when using the large preserving pan to boil up the fruit and sugar, as thisgives a fresher flavour to the marmalade.
Weigh the sugar in a large preserving pan. The pressure cooker is likely to be too small to allow for the rise in the boiling marmalade. Add the fresh juice together with the contents of the pressure cooker. Continue to make your marmalade in the usual way.
This batch was made with just lemon juice and no peel, along with Sevilles
The chopped lemon peel gives a marmalade with two different coloured peels. The pith on the lemon remains a little more opaque, obvious in the picture below.
The lemon peel from the other batch was used to make crystallized lemon peel to add to one of our favourite breakfast buns: lemon and ginger buns, which I have made at least five times!
Friday 4 January 2019
Pumpkin with Vanilla preserve
Mrs Mace is a Stasher......to the extent that I like to have a good store cupboard, with varieties of ingredients, and am prepared to try new foods, cooking techniques etc...
This year with the wonderful weather, and starting to appreciate the best sources for fruit and vegetables locally, acquired three wonderful pumpkins. As well as the Marina di Chioggia Pumpkin, I had two smaller Crown Princes.
Early December, I decided to use up the last of the pumpkin, as it had just started to show signs of aging, which was a small soft spot the size of the thumb print. It was baking time, with breads and cakes using up the pumpkins, as well as making my pumpkin panettone ready for Christmas Breakfast.
Since there was so much pumpkin, some was made up into a conserve from Mes Confitures by Christine Ferber, page 263: Pumpkin with Vanilla.
The hardest part was cutting up the firm flesh into julienne strips by hand....
Here are the julienne match sticks of pumpkin are having been infused with the sugar and vanilla, orange and lemon juice overnight.
I made half the quantity of the recipe, and although the taste is good, I would stick at this amount simply because cutting up the julienne strips took so long. Maybe a coarsely grated version would be worth trying next time. I also make the mistake of boiling it a little too long. Maybe there was not as much water in the pumpkin as usual.
However I did use some of the preserve to top some yeasted pumpkin buns, and this worked very well. I may yet blend a pot with some of the apple jelly to make a more 'fluid' preserve. I think this one is good to incorporate or add as a topping to desserts and gateau. It would be also very good mixed with pistachio nuts, in a similar way to the Apricot and Pistachio Conserve.
Several weeks later, the preserve has matured and even more of the vanilla taste has permeated the pumpkin. As I open each of the remaining jar, I have reheated and mixed in some of the apple jelly. A really delicious topper for my nightly sheep milk yogurt.
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