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A Jammy Weekend Recipes for Strawberry Balsamic Fig Vanilla Black Pepper Jam

A little cafe surrounded by a kitchen garden - windows with fluttering lace curtains - a big oven on one side - cinnamon, yeast, vanilla scents in the air - sounds of happy chatter - the aroma of fresh coffee brewing - people waiting in anticipation of a simple good time - a cup of good coffee or choice of tea with a scone or a muffin topped with some homemade jam - A girl can day dream right?

On Thursday, I ordered more fruit than I usually do for a week, especially strawberry and figs, with the intention of making jam. Im not much of a jam sandwich person. Give me a Mumbai style coriander-mint chutney and cucumber sandwich any day. But when you have a little boy at home wholl say Im hungry at the most unpredictable times of the day, it is good to have a loaf of bread and some spreads handy to make a snack in 2 minutes. He likes my Chocolate coconut Peanut Butter - well, I like it a lot myself and each batch gets over in a matter of 2-3 days. So I decided to make some jams anyway. What better way to preserve the goodness of seasonal fresh fruit for a couple more months?

Theres a lot more Id like to write about on jamming but the weekend chores beckon and I promised a few people that Ill be sharing the recipe on my blog before the end of the weekend, so here are the recipes for the two jams.

 If you always wondered what the difference was between jelly, jam and preserve, read this. 

Id say my recipes are in between a jam and preserve, because while they do have a chunky texture, it is not that chunky because the fruit was fairly finely chopped to begin with. Contrary to popular belief that jam making is the job of old matronly housewives who wish to slave in the kitchen all day and night, these jams dont take more than 30-45 minutes each, including fruit chopping time, especially because were making only a small quantity at a time. Also, in both these jams, we dont need any added pectin because both fruits are full of seeds inside them which are a natural source of pectin. As for fig jam, most recipes from international websites dont ask for the fruit to be peeled, but Indian figs are very thick skinned, therefore better off peeled.

Strawberry Balsamic Preserve
Recipe adapted from Epicurious



Ingredients
750 grams strawberries (washed, patted dry and tops removed- I bought 1 kg and this was what I got after eating a few and removing the tops)
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
3 tbsp water
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp butter

Directions

1. Finely chop the strawberries-youll get roughly 2 1/2 cups of chopped fruit
2. In a heavy bottomed steel or anodised pan, put all the ingredients together, on a medium flame, bring this to a simmer.
3. The butter prevents the mixture from foaming and splattering too much. In fact, mine didnt splatter at all. 
4. Simmer for 20-25 minutes, until the mixture is thick and translucent. Keep stirring off and on. Dont worry if its still a bit flowy and it will thicken further on cooling. So, switch off before the jam turns thick.
5. Remove pan from heat and cool thoroughly.
6. Meanwhile place two empty clean and dry glass jam jars  bottles without their lids in the microwave for one minute. This is to quick sterilise the bottles.
7. Once cooled to room temperature, spoon the jams into the two jars. Id say I got roughly two jars of 300-350 grams each.
8. Close them tight and keep in fridge. Use within a month.

Recipe for Fig-Vanilla-Black Pepper Preserve
Adapted from Taste





Ingredients
Roughly 1 kg fresh figs
1 cup sugar
half a vanilla pod (or use a cinnamon stick + 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon)
1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar or lemon juice or balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp butter

Directions

1. Wash, dry and remove stems of figs. Peel and chop finely.
2. Slice the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds with the end of the knife, add this to the chopped figs. 
3. In a large bowl, add all the ingredients, including the scraped vanilla pod, cover and keep overnight. [at this stage you could either keep the bowl of ingredients covered in the refrigerator overnight and proceed with jam making in the morning or proceed with the process immediately. I left it in the fridge overnight] 
4. After the mixture has sat in the fridge overnight, transfer them to a heavy bottomed steel pan or anodized pan, bring to a simmer on medium flame.
5. Keep stirring off and on so that the sugar does not stick to the bottom and burn.
6. In around 20 minutes, the mixture will start to thicken. Remove from flame. Cool thoroughly. 
7. Meanwhile place two empty clean and dry glass jam jars  bottles without their lids in the microwave for one minute. This is to quick sterilise the bottles.
8. Once cooled to room temperature, spoon the jams into the two jars. Id say I got roughly two jars of 300-350 grams each.
9. Close them tight and keep in fridge. Use within a month.

P.S. Sorry for the longish title. I didnt want you to think that my jammy weekend had anything to do with Rahul Dravid.