Your browser (Internet Explorer 7 or lower) is out of date. It has known security flaws and may not display all features of this and other websites. Learn how to update your browser.

X

Navigate / search

Wild Blueberry Maple Jam / Preserve / Syrup

I love the philosophies of jam.  By ‘philosophies’ I refer to the hard-line rules (perhaps they are as rigid as ethics) that each of us have around what makes a great jam.  Many prioritize the consistency or set of a jam while others may emphasize taste or texture.

I am less conventional.  I am perfectly willing to deal with runny jam that borders on syrup in favour of flavor.  For those interested in why, there’s 3 previous pieces that summarize my stance pretty well here:

  • Guided by a Sense of Terroir (and not terror)
    The concept of Terroir within cooking really hit home with me in 2010.  Although I had been using the concept of cooking from my local pallete and what is available around me, my efforts in changing my style of cooking to reflect the area I live have dramatically increased since then.  I feel like I am chasing Terroir and joining the conversation that is happening around our area to define “What is local cuisine?”  This is especially fascinating to me in a city as multicultural as Toronto.
  • What Have I got Against Pectin?
    My initial thoughts on why I avoid commercial pectin and an easy experiment for those of you who use it.
  • More Thoughts on Avoiding Pectin
    I’m not an avid anti-pectin person but I did want to share more of my thoughts about it.  :) .

All of that is a very long way to say that this jam can be runny.  It’s relatively low sugar, doesn’t have added pectin and adds maple syrup.  All of that generally leads to a very, very loose set – but something that really tastes of its ingredients, of the area and isn’t overtly sweet.  This tastes like it’s core ingredients – wild blueberries and maple syrup.

This is a great ingredient for baking, pancakes, ice cream, smoothies or, my favourite use, as a cheese topping for goat cheese (chevre).  It’s mad-good with cheese.

Ingredients

  • 6 Cups Blueberries
  • 3 Cups Brown Sugar
  • 1 Cup Maple Syrup
  • 1/3 Cup Bottled Lemon Juice (use the bottled stuff to be sure of the acidity).

Note: you could get a tighter set by not using maple syrup and using 2 cups of brown sugar and 2 cups of maple sugar.

Instructions

Yield: 4-5 1-cup jars.

  1. Place berries in a wide pan.
  2. Crush berries with a potato masher.
  3. Add lemon, sugar and syrup, stir well.
  4. Let rest for an hour.
  5. Bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Stir frequently until jam is set – about 20 minutes after it starts boiling.
  6. Skim foam, pour into sterilized 1-cup (half-pint or 250 ml) jars and process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

 This is a magical taste of late summer and something I just simply adore.

EDIT (Feb 27, 2012): Have you made this and are looking for an amazing way to eat it?  Try incorporating it into our fluffly lemon curd; it’s stunning.

Slow-Roasted Figs Preserved With Lemons (Preserving Recipe)

Allow me to start by giving credit to Canning for a New Generation (Liana Krissoff) for inspiring this recipe.  It’s a wonderful read and does deliver on its promise – it’s a lovely guide and great accompaniment to the modern pantry.  I have taken her initial recipe and turned it my own direction and changed the cooking technique considerably.

I should also discuss the source of my figs.  Figs are a relatively new crop to Ontario (check out this amazing article on growing figs in Ontario in Edible Toronto from 2009) and can be difficult to come by.  More than 90% of our preserving is done from Ontario crops; this one was an exception.  Because of the use of lemons as a key component, there was an obvious departure from local so I opted for a foreign fruit.

Lastly, let me warn you about cooking times.  There’s a lot going on in the slow-roasting process – lemon, sugar, fruit, natural sugars in the fruit and heat can build up.  The first attempt I had at this recipe ended up in a lump of burnt fig-like caramel that I stubbornly jammed in a jar and let cool.  It took the entire weekend to remove the block of coal-like fig remnants.  I figure I missed the turning point by 10-15 minutes so keep an eye on these as they cook.

The main use for these lovelies is for cheese plates.  I can’t wait to nosh them back with some cheese-to-be-named-later.  I may just pair them with some honey and some of these (one of my favorite discoveries last winter).  The figs are cut in large halves and gently slow-roasted to bring out their sweetness.  A small bit of sugar is added to cinnamon and lemons before a last-minute addition of Grand Marnier to bring it all together.

Ingredients:

  • 2 lemons, sliced thinly and seeds removed
  • 3 pounds of figs (we used green ones).  Gently clean them and remove any stem with a pairing knife.
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 1 cup of water
  • 4 sticks of cinnamon (more or less as you like)
  • 0.5 cup Grand Marnier (Orange liqueur – oranges and Figs are a natural combination).

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
  2. Slice figs in half.
  3. Place a layer of lemons at the bottom of a dutch oven (recommended but not critical).
  4. Place a half-fig on top of each slice of lemon (cut side down).  Don’t worry about being too perfect.
  5. Place cinnamon sticks in first layer – closer to the lemons, the better.
  6. Put multiple layers of lemon and figs as needed and until complete.
  7. Pout 1 cup of water gently into the pan (this will help prevent sticking and get the natural juices flowing.
  8. Disperse sugar through pot.
  9. Place uncovered pot in oven, making sure to place the lid on another rack or beside the pot. 
  10. After 30 minutes, add the lid on top of pot (use care, it will be hot) or cover with tin foil.
  11. Cook until everything has come together – there will be a lot more syrup formed and the lemons will become almost see-through.  This takes about 3 hours.  Prepare your canning supplies (jars, lids, waterbath) to coincide with completion.  If you don’t time it perfectly, things will stay very hot in your covered pot (but try to time it as close as possible).
  12. Add the Grand Marnier to the hot pot as stir.
  13. Ladle into hot, sterilized jars.  Watch for the cinnamon sticks and try to divide them equally between jars.
  14. Process 10 minutes in a hot-water bath.

This recipe should yield 4-5 half pint jars:

 Now that’s some urban jam!

What else do you make with figs – and what do you eat with it?

How To Make Rhubarb Cordial (Recipe)

It’s late for a rhubarb post but I figure it’s better late than ever.

I was also surprised to find out from one of my local friendly farmers that they grow into early August.  It tends to disappear from the market as people move onto other things theat they get more excited about.  This is amazing to me – the possibility of rhubarb-peach preserve is making my head swim!

The Mighty Tigress wrote about Rhubeena (Rhubarb drink) which was followed by Kaela of Local Kitchen writing about rhubarbaritas and my fate was sealed like a jar of this concentrate.

What is rhubeena?  It’s essentially the liquid of stewed rhubarb that is sweetened with some sugar.  It can be water-bath preserved as-is and is later mixed with 2-4 parts water (or water and other liquid such as vodka) to make a wonderful beverage that can be consumed year-round.

 The jar at the bottom wasn’t preserved (there is far too much head space here) - it was used almost as quickly as it made the bottle.

Tigress has full details on how to make it here (same link as above).  I make the following modification (when I have room in my fridge, otherwise I follow her sage advice exactly):

  • I place the sugar in a non-reactive bowl with the rhubarb and coat each piece of rhubarb liberally with the sugar.  I leave it in the fridge overnight to allow the sugar to pull the natural juices out.  I cook the rhubarb down (as she does) without the juice and add the juice at the last stage of stewing the rhubarb – once it’s back to a boil, I remove it and process from there.

It oddly reminds me of the pink lemonade that I so dearly loved as a child.

High Acid, Low Acid, Waterbath or Pressure Can? The Fundamental Decision of Canning

It’s been a very busy week – we’ve had a wedding, family in from all over the world, an accidental dinner parts for more than 60 (we figured we’d get 13), and just an all-out fun party for 3 days.  Connection to the blog and the community here has been very low (a massive pile of comments to go through awaits for a free moment).

We’ve only been around enough to pop by and smile at the messages we’re seeing here and the Facebook Community.  The group was abuzz last night with items that each of us had cooked and were very happy with over the weekend.  Lynne mentioned that she did her first ever batch of canning on the weekend (strawberry jam – this was also my ‘gateway’ into preserving) and that she had fabulous success.

Lynne also mentioned that she had some minor confusion around acid levels and waterbath vs. pressure can.  I think most of us have had this question (I remeber it feeling like such a mystery) as we learned and I wanted to flip her the easy explanation – and realized I didn’t have a short article that explained the differences.  I’m hoping today builds that resource to help those who are learning (and I hope they take comfort that we’ve all tried to untangle this one).  It’s going to be a simplification of the science – so my excuses to the chemists amongst us!

Let’s start with acidity.  Most canning relies on techniques which kill or suspend the growth of yeasts, mould and bacteria.  Acid naturally inhibits many of the nasties so food which is deemed to have high acidity don’t need the amount of processing that non-acidic food does.  Acid is measure by pH level from 0-14.  Pure water is neutral at 7, acidic substances are closer to 0 and base (alkaline) elements increase upwards from 7.

Food which is under pH level 4.6 is considered to be high acid.  This includes almost all fruit and almost no vegetables (tomatoes are close to this ‘magic number’ and it is recommended that you add citric acid or lemon juice to them to increase their acidity). 

High-acid foods are safe to be water-bathed, however:

  • Use tested recipes.  A strawberry is high acid but if you added 3 pieces of bacon for every strawberry, you’re concoction is no-longer high-acid.  Of course this is in exaggeration but it helps demonstrate the point.  And I have seen some recipes online which tell you that you can preserve bacon jam via waterbath which is (as far as I can tell) some very poor advice, in part due to the lack of acidity.
  • When in doubt, check with the pros.  My most trusted resource is the National Center for Home Food Preservation (we describe them here and include a link to them in that article).

You do not need to pressure can high-acid foods.

This brings us to low-acid foods – i.e. most vegetables.  There are two options with them (we’re ignoring other preserving methods like freezing, infusing, dehydrating and lacto-fermentation for now):

  1. Increase the acidity
  2. Pressure can them

Option 1 simply means that we add acid – in the case of tomatoes a small amount of citric acid or lemon juice (as explained at the National Center for Home Food Preservation above) is the most common fix which vegetables like cucumbers become pickles and are submerged in vinegar.  These are then water-bathed – the advantages being that they keep their texture better and you need less equipment than pressure canning – the main disadvantage (also an advantage) is that the taste is transformed to a pickle and not the original vegetable.

Pressure canning allows you to use pressure and steam to increase the heat of the processing while canning.  This attacks the nasties we mentioned earlier.  Pressure canning allows you to preserve vegetables and other low-acid foods (including stocks and meats) so that you can extend your summer food (especially local) through the year.

Rather than repeating a lot of what we’ve said in the past, here’s a few links to start/ help get your head around pressure canning:

To conclude;

  • High-Acid (most fruit) -> safe for all methods.
  • Low-Acid (most vegetables and meat) -> add acid OR pressure can
  • For both -> use tested recipes.

Hope that helps!

We love your questions and ideas (here and at the Facebook Community) – they help us know what you want to know and make for easy topic ideas (something that gets more difficult after every post :) ).

Happy Monday all.

Black Radish Relish Recipe

Two friends joined Dana and I for dinner at Parts and Labour in Toronto a few months ago.  We were spoiled as Chefs Matty Matheson and Matthew DeMille sat us in the kitchen and encouraged us to eat a large percentage of the menu.  We didn`t come close to completing a tour of their offerings (this would be impossible with 4 people) but certainly sampled a marathon of taste and were impressed at every turn in the menu (I can still remember 90% of what I ate that evening).

One of the dishes included a `black radish relish.`  It was a small portion of condiment that I all but skipped over.  I am not a chef and I`m not at their skill level – but I`m very comfortable making preserves and confident that my experience provides jars of food as flavorful as most can make.

We had finished the entire plate, minus the relish.  I swept my fork through it, not really paying attention to it.  I put it in my mouth without paying it much attention – until the flavor hit.  It was sweet and sour and tangy and earthy and awesome.  It was the best preserve I ate last year.  It`s different from a traditional relish – it can easily be eaten on it`s own and it`s complimentary to mild tastes such as fish.  I have some secret plans for this relish (that I will share if they work) but we`re going to let the flavors come together in the vinegar for 3-6 months first.

This is not their recipe – nor an attempt to duplicate what they did.  It is a tribute to that evening and one of the best restaurants in this country.

Black Radish Relish

1 pound radishes (we used 3.5 pounds and multiplied the rest of the ingredients by this factor)
1/2 pound celery stalks (we used a full head of celery)
1 cup sweet onions
2 hot red peppers (we used 4 dehydrated ones)
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon mustard seed
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons dill seed
1 1/2 teaspoons celery seed
Vinegar to cover

Instructions

  1. Chunk the radishes into relish-sized chunks.  Here`s a trick on how to use a food processor to get awesome results.
  2. Chop celery and onion coarsely.  I used a knife and some of the pieces are irregular in size (i.e. chunky) – because I plan to use this in meals (like fish), I opted for this texture rather than a consistently fine grate (like the radishes) that one would want on a sandwich spread.
  3. Combine all ingredients in a large pot, cover with vinegar and let stand at least 3 hours.  I waited 24 hours.
  4. Find the dried peppers, remove from pot (they will be soft), chop them fine and return to pot.
  5. Bring to boil. Cook 10 minutes at a steady roll.
  6. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal  – process for 10 minutes if using pints (we went 25 with quarts to be safe).

We ended up with 5 liters (5 quarts).

When I was a child I collected comic books.  There was a trend to tell an entire story without any text at one point – I`m really enjoying the same here lately.  A picture of the final results follows at the very bottom here:

Read more

How to Make Relish-Sized Chunks

Peggy walked up to me with an outstretched arm and gave me a jar which was wrapped in the warmth of her smile.  I`ll never forget seeing that jar – it looked perfect!

Getting those relish-sized chunks was a mystery to me.  I had tried using a knife – it worked but chopping a single vegetable into 7,543,235 precise slices takes a lot of time and left one arm longer than the other.

Next up was the food processor.  It worked as long as I was willing to chunk single pieces at a time – otherwise I ended up with all sorts of different sizes of things (`this one`s too big, this one`s too small, this one`s…`).

I looked at Peggy and I knew she had the answer I had searched for so long.  I believe I was able to stammer a single word (hardly even phrased as a question but the mere start of one); `How…`

She smiled and declared, `Vitamix.`  It was the first I had heard of one and I ran to google to find out that it was a killer blender-chopper thingee that was a considerable investment and took storage space that we have none of.  Foiled again!

We finally had massive success last week with a different approach when making a black radish relish (we`ll share photos and a recipe tomorrow).

The secret was simple: chunk the product into small pieces and use the grating blade on the food processor (you could also do manually if you didn`t have one).  Drop the pieces into the feeding tube and let them bounce around (I cover the hole with my hand) as they hit the blade.

The end result is perfect relish-sized chunks that are consistent in shape and size with each other – this is one of the most exciting developments in our kitchen in a very long time.  I`m going to have to be careful that I don`t turn everything into relish this year!

Nova Scotia Fridge Jam

It`s not exactly jam-making season but Dana triggered a memory from some almost forgotten part of my brain: my Grandmother`s unique approach to jam making (unique to me though I`m sure it`s used by plenty of people).  It`s so logical that I just never thought of it.

She starts with season fruit, warms them in a pan.  She haphazardly throws in whatever she wants – sometimes there`s sugar, other times there may be maple syrup and if the fruit is very sweet there may be nothing at all.

Of course this defies almost every rule of preserving (i.e. precise measurements, trusted recipes and the like).  And I suppose that`s where the fine print is – she isn`t preserving these micro batches of jam.  They are often made with a quart – or less of berries and kept in the fridge and consumed within a week.

These `freelance`jams are made when each fruit is in season and tend to be much `fruitier` tasting than what we make with sugar (and sometime pectin).  They also extend the amount of jars you keep for winter by keeping you out of the jars until the fruit you`re using is out of season.

It`s a brilliant tactic and one I have to remember to use more often – it would also allow me to experiment with different spices and flavor combinations that may not be safe for traditional canning.

Does anyone else out there make fridge jam?  Would love to know your experience or reasons for doing so.

A Year of Meat… and More Vegetables (Charcutepalooza)

Dana and I tossed this one around for a long time before deciding (with less than 3 hours before the final deadline) to join Charcutepalooza.

Charecutepalooza has been exploding on Twitter and around food blogs in general.  It is similar to the Tigress Can jam, except it focuses on the art of curing which means the focus will be meat products.  There are 300 bloggers joining in on the challenge (12 products in 12 months) and the batches can be very small.  There is also a committment for ethically raised meat.

Our conflict was mostly about time and ensuring that we don’t commit every moment of our lives to this type of thing.  I also struggled as we continue to eat meat (and I believe I will for a long time to come) but am cutting down on it in our house.  The idea of committing to 12 pieces of meat in a year seemed like a lot.  Much of charcuterie is not helpful to my waist line (as svelte as I am) so the emotional appeal of hand made bacon, salume, pate and confit is alluring but the caloric impact will be scary if we don’t cook – and eat – in moderation.

Because of all of this, I have also decided to commit to one veggie day a week.  These won’t necessarily be posted but we’ll share some of the phenomenal meals we have on those day as well.  I am going to try to stick to a minimum of 24 consecutive veggie hours (I will continue to eat dairy at that time) although the day of the week will change.  Dana and I have been talking about doing this type of adjustment for a year and I’m excited to be fully committing to it (though the truth is we already abide by this on many days by pure coincidence).

We made the only Vegetarian Charcuterie I know of last year – Lemon Confit.  It is essentially salted lemon halves that cure and become awesome zest for cooking.

We also had a crack at making duck prosciutto but I wasn’t thrilled with my results.  We’ll improve this time!

For those following along, here’s a few important links:

We’re really excited to be along for the ride…now to find some time to make bacon!

The Final Can Jam Post… Dehydrated Apple Apple Stuff (sauce)

It`s been a year of preserving for the can jammers – a massive thanks to Tigress who has been an awesome hostess – I can`t imagine the work she goes through every month to wrap up our monthly adventures and I plan to spend a lot of time on her site this year as the seasons cycle back from whence we`ve came.

This recipe is something we rarely do – it`s a near invention of ingredients.  We`ve taken a proven recipe for applesauce (that I know to be `by the book`) and supplemented some of the fresh apples and swapped them with ones we dehydrated.  As our recipe called for 12 pounds of apples, we dehydrated 3 of them.  This reduced their water content but should keep the rest in check.  I am  more than confident (I wouldn`t eat it or feed it to my family otherwise) but thought I should be open in case you try the same. Read more