Saturday, March 17, 2012

Let's make some jam today

2:36 PM |



Last time we went shopping I discovered, much to my delight, rhubarb. Looking back to my childhood, I was reminded of this nice sour taste on my tongue. I remembered, my grandma making us some compote, fruit soup or cake. 
I wasn't in the mood for making either of the dishes, so I bought the rhubarb without any recipe in mind.
Back home, I not only had an idea what to make, I also solved my problem, what to give my mother in law for her birthday. She loves rhubarb, but doesn't really like cake and while I looked at my freshly baked bread I decided to make some jam.  
I don't really have a sweet tooth and till today I've only made jam once or twice, so I had to look up some recipes. To my disappointment all of them were either mixed with strawberries that I can't buy at the moment, or bananas. As I don't like the combination of bananas with rhubarb I was pretty clueless. Thinking about making a pure rhubarb jam, I had the fear of rhubarb not having enough pectin to set. 
A glimpse to the limes gave me the inspiration for this recipe. I saw in all the recipes, that some kind of a citrus fruit was always used, but I was unsure, if the jam would come out very sour. But I decided to give it a try. As I had vanilla beans left from our stay at Mauritius I put one of those in as well. Out came a delicious jam, although not as firm as I expected. Still worth writing about it. And at the end, half of the jam became part of the birthday gift for my mom in law.
Rhubarb - lime - vanilla jam

 Ingredients

 500 g rhubarb, already prepared
2 limes (juice and zest)
250 g 2:1 jam sugar
1 vanilla bean
Preparation

 First of all wash the rhubarb properly, cut into small pieces and put it in a pot. Spread the sugar all over, put the lid on and let it rest for 30 min.
In the meantime grate the zest from the limes and squeeze the juice. When ready to cook, add the zest and juice to the rhubarb together with a vanilla bean.
Bring it to boil, while stirring.
Cook at a rapid boil for 3 minutes. Please mind, to stir all the time, in order not to burn the jam. Remove the vanilla bean and mash the fruits a little (optional), fill the sterilized jars to the brim, close the lid and let them cool off upside down. Store dark and cool. Refrigerate after opening.

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