Spiced Mango Jam

Every time we visit my daughter and son-in-law, she packs with us something for my parents. When we visited in Portland, strawberries were in season and she sent strawberry jam, then. This year, they waited for us, to go and buy a full crate of mangoes that their local Indian store had stocked.

We had bought a book of jams and preserves, from which we adapted the recipe. The original was a mango cardamom jam, which used jamming sugar. Since we don't get that here in the US, we opted to use pectin along with granulated sugar. We also added to the cardamom, some nutmeg and saffron, along with chilli flakes to enhance the flavour.



Spiced Mango Jam



Yield - 3x8oz jars 

Ingredients

1 kg mangoes (peeled and stone removed weight)
450 grams granulated sugar
1 tbsp. whole fruit pectin
6 pods green cardamoms
1/3 of a whole nutmeg
a generous pinch of saffron
1/2 tsp chilli flakes


Method

Put a ceramic plate into the freezer, ready for testing.
Set a deep pan of water to simmer on the stove, ready to sterilize and process the jam jars.
Pulp the peeled and stoned mangoes coarsely.
Put it into a heavy bottom dutch oven, along with the rest of the ingredients, expect for the pectin.

On a medium heat, cook till the sugar dissolves and bring to a boil. Simmer for a further 15 minutes or so, till the fruit softens.
Once the mangoes have cooked down, add the pectin, and stir it in.
Boil rapidly for about 10 minutes, till the jam begins to thicken.
As it gets up to a jam like consistency, put a little dollop of jam on the plate that you put in the freezer. If it is set, the jam shouldn't run.
By now, the jam jars in the water should be ready to fill.

Once you fill the bottles, seal them while the jam is still hot.
Once you open a bottle, put the jam in the fridge, and use a dry spoon to serve.
Enjoy with hot toast, or straight out of the jar!

Fig Jam

My daughter has a small home garden that they tend with lot of care. They grow, in a small space, many rose plants, few vegetables according to the season and berries in their garden. The kitchen herbs are in small pots. They have cherries and figs all growing in small trees that may someday be really big and bear lot of fruits. She just sent me a picture of the lavender that she removed from the garden.

The fig tree is small yet there were many tiny figs that would be fruit by season. They were still raw when we left for home and have ripened recently.
She and her husband have been having smoothies and milk shakes with the fruits. She said she had just finished her lot of the strawberry jam and was looking to make some with the fresh figs. She sent me pictures and the recipe she followed and this post is about the jam she made with her homegrown figs.

I shall be excused for filling the post with more pictures than the recipe for I like the pictures she sent and do not know which of those to discard.

Fig Jam

(Recipe  and pictures from Niki, my daughter, given as received in my mail)

Ingredients:

20 medium sized figs

3/4 cup powdered jaggery

couple of pinches cinnamon

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tbsp butter

Method:

- Prepare a 1 pint jar for canning. Put it in hot water and keep warm.

- Put a ceramic plate in the freezer so that you might try the plate test when the jam is ready.

- Rinse and dry the figs.

- Slice the tops off and remove the peels. The peels give away a bitter taste unlike real ripe fruits we get in the market. If you may, go ahead and use the peel too.

- Pulp the figs (I just did this by mushing them with my hands) to a mush.

- Put them in a heavy bottom pan or a dutch oven and cook them on a medium flame for about 5 to 6 minutes with the lemon juice. 

- Add the jaggery all in one go, and the cinnamon and stir it in.

- Once the jaggery has dissolved, keep cooking till the jam comes together and plates well (about 40 minutes).

- Put the butter in and give it a quick stir.

- Pour the jam into already prepared/sterilized jar and let cool.

Yields 1 pint

She said that the jam had more sweetness and the hint of cinnamon was remarkably good. She felt that she did not taste the fig so much as she would like. Still, she said, the jam tasted good and was of nice spreadable consistency.

Strawberry Jam

I mentioned that we went strawberry picking while holidaying with our daughter and son-in-law. It was so much fun to visit the vast farm and trying to pick and pick and pick.there was no restrictions so we kept eating as we picked. Not for a fleeting minute did either of us care that we are consuming not-so-clean fruits. Fresh from the plant seemed to take over any such idea. We kept going until we spotted that the shopping crates we had carried from home were filling up quickly. The whole purchase weighed to about 6lbs. Brought the strawberry loot home and stored them in the freezer all the while keeping aside for consumption as fresh. It was not hard to think of dishes to use them up before the next weekend visit to the farm.
My daughter made the strawberry ice cream that had a wonderful flavour and beautifully natural colour from the fresh produce. Meanwhile, on a visit to a bookstore, we came across a book on jams, jellies and preserves. Curious about the contents, we bought the book. Now was time to put to use the book and the berries we thought. However, cooking from the book did not materialise and we decided to rely on the internet. I had also picked up a small pack of pectin just to try. So, with some guidance from various sites on the internet and the book, we tried our recipe for the strawberry jam.At first attempt we let it sit in the heat a wee little longer and the jam was not flowing into prepared canning jars. We were careful the second try and we had perfect textured jam. Niki made this delicious jam and I carried it back home for my father. He seems to be eating it with anything he can pair it with.

Strawberry Jam
(Recipe adapted from various internet sites)
Makes 2X475 millilitres jars full.

Ingredients:
2 &1/2 cups crushed fresh strawberries
1/8 cup (30 ml) juice of lemon/lime
1/2 tablespoon powder pectin
3&1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon butter at room temperature

Method:
Heat water in a largish bowl in which you will be able to drop the glass jars that will store the jam.
Gently immerse the two canning jars in the simmering water. Keep them very warm until ready to transfer the hot jam.
Crush the strawberries with the back of a ladle to almost pulpy.
In a heavy bottom large bowl, add the pulp and the lemon juice and combine. Gradually add mix the pectin in.
Place the bowl on heat and bring the mixture to a full rolling boil.
It should boil down so much that the mix cannot be stirred down. Do this over high heat while constantly stirring the mixture.
Once the mix has thickened, add the entire sugar. Allow it to dissolve and cook back to full rolling hot again.
Add the butter and stir again, leaving it just for a minute on the stove. The butter eliminates the possibility of foam that might collect over the top.
You may do the plate test to check for doneness.

Remove the jars from the canning bath and quickly transfer the jam into them, leaving some space at the neck of the jars.
Store well with tight lids.
Enjoy with as many dishes as you wish.

Apple jam - a jiffy jam cooked in microwave

The day we brought home amma's microwave oven, we decided to test it out cooking someting. With the oven came a cookbook by Mrs. Geeta Narang and a few microwave safe plastic containers. The book had this recipe of apple jam. As with sentiments, we wanted the first tried dish to be a sweet dish and chose the jam. Niki cooked the dish following the instructions. The jam came out very well.

I had forgotten about making jam at home until Usha posted her mixed fruits jam. And when Jayashree invited us to Celebrate fellow bloggers hosting Srivalli's Microwave Easy Cooking, now popularly known as MEC, I tried Mango preserve trying this recipe from Aparna.

Yet, I did not find time to check out this recipe again until recently. Two days ago I read Viji's blog post on baked apple sauce and was very inspired. I had few apples on hand after a mass purchase of fruits for the festival season. I tried them the same day and reserved two apples to try this recipe.

Since I had reduced the number of apples, the yield was not much, but the jams had turned out to be something I will cook many times in future. For now, I share this recipe here and will send it to Nivedita who is hosting MEC Fruits this September.

The darker jam in this picture is made with dark brown sugar adding ground cinnamon. This is the recipe I adapted from Vcuisine (a private blog, opens to invited readres). It is with baked apples.

The next one is the recipe from the book Tastes of India a complimentary copy that comes with LG microwave ovens.

This LG microwave has a maximum output of 900 watts. So technically if I say High or 100% power it means 900 watts output, and so on. Please note that you will have to adjust the timings as with your machine. I have a higher wattage microwave and cook for lesser minutes.

You need just three ingredients and a little more than 12 minutes including peeling and coring the fruit and cooking.

Ingredients:

2 apples peeled, cored and chopped

1/2 cup sugar

Juice of 1/2 a lime

Method:

Mix sugar and chopped apples in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave at 100% power for 3- 4 minutes, covered, until apples are soft and suger blended. I suggest using a slightly bigger bowl as the sugar might boil and overflow the bowl.

Take it out, cool for a few minutes. Blend to a pulp in a blender.

Return the puree to the same bowl. Cook, covered on 60% power for 7 - 8 minutes until the jam has thickened and looks translucent. Stir once in between to avoid scorching.

Take out of the microwave and stir in the lemon juice.

Allow to cool and store. As the yield is not much with two apples, if you want to keep for over a week, use more apples and check the consistency more often while cooking.

Enjoy the jam with your morning toast or use it in jam biscuits which is what I make jams for!

Goa to Ghana - my experiments in Aparna's wonder kitchen

There is one bottle that I have been cleaning, refilling and storing in the refrigerator ever since Srivalli decided to host this edition of Lakshmi's Tried and Tasted, a brainchild of Zlamushka. In fact, there are two spiced jams that I tried.

The first time I cooked them following Aparna's recipes to the letter. Lately I started putting them inside the microwave and go about other chores, giving a peak once or twice into the bowl for a stir.

The spicy tomato jam can never cease to charm my husband. He opens the fridge looking for the bottle. It is that excellent. Somewhat sweet yet warm with the flavour of the cloves, ginger and paprika.

While he loves the tomato jam, I keep licking fingers with the onion flavoured pear and raisins chutney. I love the overpowering taste of onions and the fat cooked raisins that are sweet.

We are so hooked to these that I am not trying anything for a while, pears being in season here and tomatoes selling quite cheap. With the Hindus celebrating one festival after another, the fruits bowl is overflowing, giving me a chance to cook the jams.

The good part is that you can tweak the recipe here and there to suit your tastes.

Look out for the two jams in her Diverse Kitchen while you enjoy the visual treat here.

They are very easy to make and delicious to serve. Go ahead and try them, be warned, you might never want to stop cooking.

Microwave Mango jam - celebrating a fellow blogger

Jayashree, hosting Srivalli's MEC this month solicits tried and tasted recipes from other blogger friends. I have been trying recipes from other bloggers sometimes adjusting the recipes to my requirements and availabilty of ingredients on hand.

Living in a tropical country, I see mangoes year around. The mangoes here are big and sweet and another variety is sweet yet very fibrous. The shop lady is very generous with the mangoes, I get them at throw away prices above which my driver will sweet talk her to drop some extra :)

I chose this recipe from Aparna who I am in awe with for the baking she does. Looking through her recipes I found this one and another that I might try with ingredients on hand. I made these twice once in the jam form and the next time I let it cook a while longer until the jam hardened and I could roll aam papads.

Now to the recipe:

The original recipe can be read here

http://www.mydiversekitchen.com/2008/06/microwaved-mango-preserves.html
5 mangoes, peeled and chopped
¾ cup powdered jaggery/ brown sugar
1 ½ tsp dried ginger
1 tsp cinnamon powder
4-5 cloves
½ tsp salt
Method:
If you would like the preserve to be more like jam, then run the mango a couple of times in the blender.
Put all the ingredients, except the ginger in a microwave safe bowl. Mix and then cook at 100% for ten minutes. Now add the ginger, stir well and microwave at 80% for another 8 minutes. Allow the preserve/ jam to cool. It will thicken a little bit. Bottle and refrigerate. I got enough preserve to fill a medium sized jam jar.
My mangoes were quite juicy and so took longer to cook and reduce. You might have to adjust your cooking time depending on the variety of mango. Similarly, you might need to adjust the jaggery/ brown sugar required depending on the sweetness of your mangoes.

Have a look at the pictures and you will understand how well we relished this.