Well Preserved

Ok it’s time for the can jam…  This month we had the option between asparagus and rhubarb – two of my all-time favourites.

Before we get into the recipe, I’ll share a little secret if you promise not to tell anyone:

I keep preserves for longer than 12 months.

I don’t think I’ll need the witness protection program to keep me safe with that one but it’s the truth.

My primary rule is “When in doubt throw it out.”  I have found that most of my preserves are up to my personal standards for consumption for 2 years.  Do so at your own risk and do your own research as your personal experience may be different than mine but many of my jars will stay in the pantry for that long (their are some exceptions which are mostly tied to the rate at which we consume vs produce – i.e. even with 100+ jars of tomato sauce shared with my parents, we rarely have a jar make it to the next season).

Since our pantry has hundreds of jars, we were bound to run into some duplicate ingredients in the can jam as we enter peak growing season.  For example, our pantry still contains:

• 4-large jars of pickled asparagus spears.  Ideal for Caesars and a jar can disappear at a party in a hurry.
• 10 cups of stewed rhubarb.  I do love this – make your own crumble or mix it with strawberry jam to make a table-side concoction to your need and be able to adjust the tartness to your mood.

Ultimately, we have a lot of both still left.  We were also pressure canning asparagus so we’d have plenty of options covered for the winter.

It had also been a fairly heavy weekend of preserving (at least for early spring).  The can jam recipe was the final batch of 3 large (i.e. 12+ jars) batches of preserving.  I decided that one cannot have enough pickled asparagus and wanted to play a bit with last year’s recipe but I also decided I didn’t want to spend 2 hours meticulously cutting and stuffing spears into jars.

So I cheated:

The difference between bits and spears saved me 90-120 minutes.  Bits have some advantages – they are far easier to serve at a party, can take the flavours of the brine faster (there is more surface area and more ‘entry’ points for the flavour) and easier to eat without cutlery.  I know some of those are stretches but it did save a bunch of time (did I mention I already have some long spears for Caesers?)

Before the recipe, let’s bring up the issue of floating again.  It’s a question that brings a lot of people to us.  I have a technique I call “seatbelting” which solves all floating issues (click the link to learn how to stop pickles from floating).  It’s an easy trick – you essentially place the last few vegetables horizontally across the jar mouth to stop any from rising to the top.  THis means that there are a few pieces of asparagus at the top of the jar that are longer than the rest (I typically used the thinnest ones for this).

Our recipe for pickled asparagus bits:

• brine made of 50% water, 50% vinegar.  Bring to a simmer.

Each sterilized pint (500 ml) jar should receive:

• 1.5 teaspoons pickling salt
• 1.5 teaspoons sugar
• 1.5 teaspoons mustard seeds
• 1.5 teaspoons of dried dill
• 1.5 teaspoons of celery seed
• several slices of onions or chopped onion
• dried chillies (we used a single piquin pepper which is 20-30 times hotter than a jalapeno)

Add all ingredients into the jar before sealing in a water bath for 10 minutes.

We`ll wait at least 6 weeks before digging it.  We made 16 cups of asparagus in total and am excited to give them a try!