Sometimes we forget how easy are to make some recipes.
When I got married, my husband and I went to live in a little village called Polcenigo. It’s an old rural little town with two beautiful springs, with a lot of old buildings and with very fascinating views.
I’ve never made a jam before I moved to live in Friuli Venezia Giulia region. Yes, my grandma Teresa used to make her own jam when she had a lot of fruit, but I’ve never been interested in it and I really never helped her in the process.
One day one of my new neighbors gifted me some plums. Well, she gifted me tons of plums, so I decided to make jam for the first time. It was about 30 years ago.
The first thing I did was calling my grandma for asking her the ingredients. Her replies was very easy: for 1 kilo of fruit without seeds, you need 1/2 kilo of white sugar. Let it cook for a couple of hours, stirring once in while. That’s it.
Well, from that first experience, few things have changed.
Asking around and checking the ingredients written on the jars in the grocery stores, I found out that many people add artificial pectine to make their jam thicker in a shorter time. But I really don’t like to use chemicals, so, after researching on the web, I realized that adding the juice of one lemon or one peeled apple cut in pieces to the fruit I’m making the jam with, they both develop natural pectine.
Another thing I learned, after trying multiple times, is that we can reduce the amount of sugar up to 30% and that we can also use the brown sugar instead of the white one.
I still don’t make it very often, but my favorites are Raspberry Jam and Strawberry Jam. Here is the recipe:
STRAWBERRY JAM
Ingredients : 1 kilogram fresh red strawberries, cut in pieces; 300 grams sugar, one lemon juice.
Method: Put everything in a tall pot, possibly a stainless steel one, put on the stove at low heat until the sugar starts melting, then the heat can be at medium-high. Let everything boil for about 15 minutes, stirring once in while. Take the pot out of the burner and blend the fruit with an immersion blender. Put the pot back on the stove and let the jam boil for other 15 minutes. Pour the jam in a glass jar, close the lead and let it cool down. When it’s cold, put in the fridge. If you like a thick jam, mix all the ingredients in the pot, and let it sit in the fridge for 12 hours, then start cooking the mix.
Cook in Italy with Teresa 