Tomato and Beetroot Jam

We've been having a healthy harvest of tomatoes from our vegetable patch. It is a real blessing and a highly rewarding exercise. As summer wanes, my ritual is to prepare some fresh fruit/vegetable jam from the summer harvest. This year, the overflowing bag of fresh, plump tomatoes lured me to make some jam with sweet beets.

Although the flavor combination of tomatoes and beets is not obvious, the two come together to make a really delicious combination. The sweet flavor of the beets perfectly complement the tartness of the tomatoes. I have vague memories of this particular jam stewing and cooking away in my grandmother's (and her sister's) kitchen. My scent-memory can smell the beets cooking in the tomato puree, and my taste buds vividly recollect the subtle bite of the juicy beets and the burst of cardamom that seeps through and perfumes the jam. So, suffice to say this is one of my favorite spreads. After several years, I was happy to make a batch of this jam along with my mom.

Strawberry Rhubarb & Apple Jam

When it's spring time, we get a generous gift of rhubarbs from a colleague at work. And I always go scrambling for new rhubarb recipes. I am not a fan of anything that's tart, so the only way I know of using the rhubarbs is in crisps, pies, and jams that take in sugar. This time, I tried a mixed fruit jam with some rhubarbs, lots of strawberries and an apple. 

I found the amount of sugar I originally added to be insufficient to cut down the tartness of the rhubarbs, so I have adjusted the sugar in the recipe below. Depending on how sweet or tart the fruits are, make your judgement call on the sugar.

Recipe was adapted from here

Ingredients (makes a little more than a pint of jam):

1. 3 cups ripe strawberries, sliced into pieces
2. 1 cup rhubarb, peeled, and diced into small pieces
3. 1 Gala apple, cored and sliced
4. 2 cups sugar
5. 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
6. 1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom powder

Preparation: 

1. Add sugar and lemon juice in a large sauce and heat on low heat until the sugar dissolves and simmers gently. About 10 minutes.
2. Add all the sliced fruits and heat over medium flame for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The fruits will release their juice and begin to bubble gently.
3. At this point, attach a candy thermometer (a useful and inexpensive investment) and continue to stir and break down the fruits gently. Wait until the reading on the thermometer is 225 F. It takes about 15-20 minutes to get to this point. If you don't own a thermometer, wait for the mixture to thicken like syrup. Or after the 15 minute mark, take some of the jam and place it on a cold plate. Let the jam cool (about a minute) and feel the texture with your hand. If it feels like a spreadable jelly, then the jam is done. Otherwise let it cook for an additional 5 minutes and again check.
4. When the jam reaches 225 F, switch off the heat and immediately add the cardamom powder and mix well. 
5. Immediately transfer to sterilized, clean, jars and wait for the jam to completely cool before sealing and refrigerating.

This jam tastes different from most other jams because of the combination of these particular fruits and vegetable. And due to not blending the fruits/vegetable into pulp, you get little bites of the strawberries and apples. 

If you are a fan of tart and sweet jams, this one is for you!

Peach Jam

It’s that time of the year when our garden blooms and comes alive with fruits, vegetables and more flowers. As Summer inches towards its end, the only consolation for us is the bounty we reap. Among others, we have an old and mellow peach tree that faithfully bears us bags upon bags of fruit every year. Despite leaving a share of fruits for the birds and squirrels, and passing on fruit baskets to friends and colleagues, we still end up with an overflowing refrigerator filled to the brim with fruits. After trying to eat them, juice them, and make smoothies out of them every other day (to note: peaches+mango+banana makes a lush tropical drink), we eventually tire of them. As the peaches start reaching their expiry, we begin to scuttle around the place, wringing hands with worry, wondering what to do, and shuddering at the thought of throwing away rotten peaches. It never occurs to us to sell them, for they become a little too personal to us. We both are such sentimental fools. So, I decided to make jars and jars of peach jam.

My mother-in-law prepared awesome peach jam last year that came for a good long year for us. So, inspired by her, and her delicious jam, I followed her easy recipe, and modified it a bit to convert 30 peaches into yummy jam.

I love the combination of peaches and oranges (from a smoothie trial), so I generously added the zest of three oranges that were sadly being neglected for a while. And, upon my mother-in-law’s suggestion, I also added saffron and cardamom powder. I am thrilled that these little touches enhanced the taste and flavor of the jam!

Ingredients

1. I used 30 peaches. It translated to 7 cups of peach pulp.
2. 14 cups of sugar, following a 1:2 ratio of peach pulp: sugar. This does evince the raised-eyebrows look, and it drained my teeny sugar container in no time, leaving me dazed and guilty. But jam is eventually about sugared fruit. Besides, one wouldn’t consume more than a spoon or two of jam per day, so it shouldn’t be so bad. If your peaches/fruit happen to be sweet, moderate the sugar accordingly. Peaches are generally tart and need sugar.
3. The grated zest of 3 oranges
4. A couple of pinches of saffron
5. 3-4 teaspoons of cardamom powder
6. The juice of 1 lemon. Lemon is a good preservative, and its tartness brings out the flavor of the peaches and oranges much better.

 
Preparation

1. In a big pot of boiling water, add all the peaches and let them blanch for 10-15 minutes (mine took about 20 minutes, due to the sheer volume and inadequately sized pot). Remove the peaches and immerse them in another pot of cold water (ice-cold water is much better as it shocks the peaches, stops them from cooking, and makes their peels slide off easily).  Remove their peels and pits, and put their pulp in a blender/food processor.
2. Pulse the blender/food processor till the pulp reaches a uniform consistency. Do not puree or grind, for it would then result in peach juice. I also personally like little bits of fruit in my jam as opposed to a pureed mass.
3. Transfer the pulp into a large, heavy bottomed pot. Add the required quantity of sugar and orange zest. With the heat on medium-low, start stirring the mass until the sugar dissolves and begins to bubble.
4. At this point, reduce the heat to low and continue stirring every now and then to avoid the pulp from burning or sticking to the bottom. Continue stirring until the mass begins to thicken a little, resulting in uneven chunks that don’t drizzle down. It took me 1 hour and 20 minutes (precisely) from the time I switched on the heat to get to this state. At around 1 hour add some saffron and cardamom powder and stir well. Remember, the jam will thicken as it cools, so do not wait to reach the exact consistency of room-temperature/cold jam when the jam is hot. So after 1 hour, every 5 minutes, I started testing the consistency by taking a drop of jam on a cool plate and checking on its consistency when it cools (within a minute). If it cools to become sticky yet spreadable (like jam) then it’s done. If it cools to a watery, runny consistency, then it needs to cook/boil more.
5. When the jam reaches the right consistency, squeeze the juice of 1 lemon and stir well.
6. Then, transfer the jam into clear, clean, sterilized jars with an air-tight lid. Transfer the jam when it is hot, else it becomes difficult to spoon out all the jam.
7. Let the jam cool down overnight. Then close the jars with the air-tight lids and refrigerate. They easily last for a year (and perhaps more!)

I felt like Monica (in Friends) as I ladled out several containers of jam and had the house smelling of peach and orange! But it felt good to translate the fruits into so many bottles of finger-licking lip-smacking jelly! The saffron was the star ingredient of this jam. From now on, all jams of mine will contain this luxurious flavor. Our close friends have received several months’ worth of jam.... hopefully they enjoy it during the upcoming cold mornings. How I wish I could parcel a couple of jars to India and California!

And since Meenakshi ammal has similar jam recipes in her book (on jackfruit jams and banana jams!), I can partially tick that chapter off too ;).