Five Seasons of Jam by Lillie O’brien

Author:Lillie O’brien
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Octopus
Published: 2018-05-11T00:00:00+00:00

BLACKBERRY & VINCOTTO JELLY

Vincotto translates as ‘cooked wine’ in Italian and is a thick sweet molasses made from red wine grapes cooked down and reduced by about a fifth of their original volume. It’s traditionally made in the Marche, Apulia, Veneto, Lombardy and Emilia Romagna regions in Italy and is used as a replacement for balsamic vinegar. The warmth of the concentrated grapes and blackberries creates a deep rich jelly that is perfect for cheese and cured meats. You will need the apples here to hold together the jelly.

Makes 10 x 220g jars

1.5kg Bramley or Granny Smith apples

2.5 litres water

500g blackberries

1.5g caster sugar

4 tablespoons vincotto

1. Wash the apples and roughly chop into 5cm/2in pieces – no need to be too fussy as these will break down once soft. You want to cook all parts of the apple including the skin, core and pips as it all adds flavour and pectin. Put into a heavy-based saucepan with the water and blackberries and bring to the boil then turn down and simmer for 12–13 minutes. Try not to bash up the apples pieces as this will prevent the jelly from having a lovely crystal clear finish.

2. After 20 minutes, remove from the heat and strain through fine cheesecloth. Most jellies like to hang overnight to extract the maximum liquid but I tend to hang mine for 2–3 hours and find that’s enough.

3. When you’re ready to make your jelly, pour the strained liquid back into the clean heavy-based pan with the vincotto and set over a low heat. Slowly add the sugar and bring to the boil and cook vigorously for 20 minutes or until setting point is reached, 105°C/220°F on a sugar thermometer. Pour into warm sterilised jars and seal immediately. Store in a cool dark place.

TIP

Cocoa beans are the seed of the Theobroma cacao plant, a native of Central and South America. The fruit is picked and the beans are fermented before being dried, roasted and peeled. The nibs are just broken up pieces of the seeds. Buy them from a health food store, ready roasted and broken up.

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