Makes about 2 kg (4 lb 8 oz)
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500 g (1 lb 2 oz) pears
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) apples
500 g (1 lb 2 oz) plums
zest and strained juice of 1 lemon
1 thumb-size knob of fresh ginger, bashed
1.2 kg (2 lb 10 oz/5 cups) sugar
METHOD
1 Wash and sterilise seven 300 ml (10½ fl oz) jars
2 Peel and core the pears and apples. Peel and stone the plums and cut all of the fruit into large chunks. Put them in a jam pan with the zest and juice of the lemon and the ginger. Add enough cold water to just cover the fruit. Bring to the boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium and cook for about 30 minutes until the fruit is soft.
3 Fish out the ginger (or leave it in if you like it spicy) and add the sugar. Stir until the sugar has dissolved then increase the heat to high. Boil rapidly for about 15 minutes, remove from the heat and check the set.
4 Pour into sterilised jars and seal. Store in the pantry until opened, then store in the fridge.
Sterilisation
This is the big one. In the age of refrigeration we’ve often forgotten how much mould and yeast thrive when left unchecked. You can preserve things through excluding oxygen (tight-fitting lids), introducing an acid (pickled foods), and by adding enough sugar or salt. But even then it’s important to start with really clean implements, and to store things in sterilised
jars with sterile lids. So wash your storing jars or containers really well before sterilising.
Try The Heat Method
Heat kills bugs, and bugs can cause your preserves to lose quality, or even go off. If you want to sterilise just one bottle, or a few jars, you can place them in a saucepan of cold water, on their sides, making sure they’re full of water and submerged. Put their lids in there too. Bring this pot to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. This will kill just about all the bugs you’re worried about. The only downside of this method is that it is a little tricky to take hot bottles from a pot of boiling water, though there are special tongs on the market to help you. A good thing to note is that hot sauces and
jams will crack a cold jar, and this method allows you to have your jars pre-warmed ready
to pour in a hot conserve.
Dishwashers, with a hot rinse cycle, also sterilise the jars, so that could be an easier method.
Be sure, when dealing with hot jars, not to put them onto a cold surface or they will crack. Always put them onto a wooden board. Cold jars will also crack if they have very hot things put in them, so warm the jars a little first, using warm water or similar.
Recipes and Images from Not Just Jam by Matthew Evans, published by Murdoch Books
