Tangled Branches: Satiated

riveting tales of how we sustain ourselves

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Hot Pepper Jelly 1.0

I think it was Ki who planted the idea in my mind. I never even tasted Hot Pepper Jelly before I made it yesterday so I didn't really know what to expect. However, the flavor I imagined was hotter than the reality of this batch. And if I had followed Ki's lead and used Habaneros I might have gotten the heat level I imagined. As it was, I intended to use 100% red ripe Serranos instead of the bell peppers plus 10 Jalapeños the recipe called for. I used the recipe from the leaflet in the Sure-Jell package (and on their website). They wanted a total of 4 cups of finely chopped peppers to 1 cup of vinegar, 5 cups of sugar and a packet of Sure-Jell. I thought by using all Serranos, seeded, I'd a have a pretty red jelly with pieces of pepper suspended in it (no seeds to ugly it up) and that surely 4 cups of Serranos, even seeded, would be enough heat. And maybe it would have been, but I only had enough Serranos for 3 cups and had to make up the final cup with ripe chocolate bell pepper plus a few assorted others.

The color is pretty, just like I hoped for. Taste, well I don't know. I'm not all that keen on sweet sweet things and this has almost a cup of sugar in every jar. It does taste of peppers, with just a tiny little tingling of capsaicin. I tried it on toast this morning, and I'm not about to give up my hibiscus jam for this. I think it might have a future as an ingredient and not something to eat on its own. For lunch today, I mixed it with mayonnaise and coarse mustard as the dressing for a shrimp salad. I expect it would make a good base for a BBQ sauce, or a ham glaze, or maybe even for the sweetening in a mustard recipe I plan to try. Any other ideas?

Labels: canning, jam, peppers

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Hibiscus Jam 1.0

They call it Rosella in Australia. That's what I learned when I started searching online for Hibiscus Jam recipes. And just like any other given thing, there are many ideas about how it should be done. I focused on the recipes that measured the fruit and sugar by weight, hoping for greater accuracy. To add or not to add lemon juice? I couldn't understand why - the fruit is quite tart - so I didn't. How much sugar then? Of the two recipes that made it to the championship round, one had twice the amount of sugar as the other. I compromised and weighed out an amount equal to 1.5 times the weight of the fruit. I'm calling it fruit here because I'm tired of typing calyces, even though that's technically what they are.

Having decided on a recipe, I had to gather up some equipment. Where is my 5-quart pan? Not here. OK, I'll just make a smaller quantity. Oh, and I'll need some canning jars and a canning kettle. Two hours and four stores later I had the jars but not the kettle. Well, maybe the stockpot would work. I have a cake rack that will fit in the bottom - oops, no, it's a fraction of an inch too big. How about the old collapsible steamer basket? But the bottom isn't flat. But it's all I have. OK fine. This is an experiment anyway. No jar lifter. What about tongs? Yeah, but where are they? Never mind, I'll use a couple of big slotted spoons.

I measured out 200 grams of hibiscus fruit (calyces with the seed pod removed), chopped them somewhat finely, and set them in a 3-quart pan to simmer with somewhere between 3/4 and 1 cup of water (not quite enough to cover the fruit). I let that simmer for 20 minutes and added 300 grams of white sugar. Simmered for another 20 minutes, uncovered, and packed into 4 4-ounce jars (hot from the dishwasher). Put the lids on and processed for 10 minutes in my improvised water bath canner.

I was so concerned that it might not gel. I needn't have worried. The end product is very firm. How to correct this next time? More water? Less cooking time? But never mind that. This stuff tastes really good! It's not it's like some inferior version of a "real" fruit jam, made out of necessity from available ingredients. Some have compared it to cranberry, and yes, it's something like that. There's no astringency though. To me it has a haunting, faintly floral, unidentifiable "red" flavor. I am definitely going to make this again.