This is a slightly frivolous recipe for an old boring strawberry jam, or frankly speaking, an excuse to open a bottle of Prosecco! One of my treasured childhood memories, is that of my grandmother making the summer jam, she had a massive pan , that took over all four burners on the cooker. The jam making was at least a two day long process, our job was to stir it now and then, WITHOUT licking the spoon! This little conserve is lovely as a present for Christmas (it seems too early to think about it now, but the strawberries are in season for a short while), or serve it with ice-cream, pancakes,cakes or just a toast.The quantities that I use here make about 710 ml of jam, so adjust your jars accordingly , and/or if desired make a bigger or a smaller amount. In July/August substitute the peaches for strawberries , in September use pears and instead of Prosecco use Brandy.
700 gr strawberries (washed and halved or quartered)
350 gr of jam sugar (important to use the jam sugar, as it has pectin added, in USA it's called Gelling sugar)
juice of half a lemon
50 ml of Prosecco
4 tbsp of good quality cocoa
Put the strawberries in the pan with sugar , lemon juice and Prosecco, we will use the cocoa in the very end.
Let the fruit stand for an hour and release its juices.
After that, cook on the very low stirring from time to time, for about 30 min.
Switch off, allow it to cool down, repeat the process, remove the foam from the top of the jam. Leave to cool down again, I usually leave it overnight.
The last step: bring the jam to the boil again, on the very low heat.
Add all the cocoa powder , stir in well.
Cook for a further 5 min., pour in the sterilised jars and give it a day or two to settle. On the other hand, use as a hot sauce if any extra left!
The reason why I don't have a bottle of Prosecco on display here, is that it got accidentally drunk!
No comments:
Post a Comment