The Food in Jars Kitchen
Page 17
RECOMMENDED PRESERVES:
Blueberry and lemon is a classic combination that’s always perfect (for further proof, see the Lemon Curd and Blueberry Tart, here). You can also use strawberry, blackberry, or raspberry here, and this would be an excellent use for a fruit syrup, or a jelly that didn’t quite set.
MARMALADE HOT TODDY
MAKES 1 DRINK
This soothing drink is something I reach for whenever I’m not feeling well. Most of the time, I make it without the traditional bourbon so that it can be an all-day drink.
2 tablespoons lemon marmalade
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 ounce/30 ml bourbon (optional)
1½ cups/355 ml just-boiled water
Combine the lemon marmalade, lemon juice, and bourbon, if using, in a large mug. Add the hot water and stir to combine.
Note: I sometimes also grate a little fresh ginger into my mug for added flavor. This is particularly good when you’re battling a sore throat.
RECOMMENDED PRESERVES:
Lemon marmalade works best here, although lime is also nice.
CHAMPAGNE SHRUB COCKTAIL
MAKES 6 COCKTAILS
Neither my husband nor I drink much alcohol, but we both love a glass of Champagne. I’ve taken to spiking glasses of champagne, prosecco, or domestic sparkling wine with a little homemade shrub to add flavor and interest to our favorite celebratory beverage. It’s essentially a twist on the classic Kir Royale.
6 tablespoons shrub
1 (750 ml) bottle midrange Champagne, prosecco, or sparkling wine
Garnish to complement the shrub (e.g., whole or sliced fruit, or herb sprigs)
Line up 6 champagne flutes. Portion 1 tablespoon of shrub into the bottom of each glass. Fill each glass with about 4 ounces/120 ml of wine. Garnish as appropriate (see note). Serve.
Note: As far as the garnish goes, if you’re using a blueberry shrub, float a few fresh blueberries in the glass to finish. If your shrub features citrus, garnish the glass with a twist of peel or a small wedge of fruit. It makes for a pretty finish and elevates the drink.
RECOMMENDED PRESERVES:
Fruit-forward shrubs are the thing to use here.
PANTRY SANGRIA
SERVES 6 TO 8
For most of my twenties, sangria was my drink. Every time my friends and I would gather for a party or cookout, I would make up a batch in a half-gallon jar to bring along. I liked it because it felt festive no matter the time of year and was a way to make even the most middling bottles of wine taste good. In this version, I’ve removed the traditional addition of sugar and replaced it with a little jam or marmalade to bring sweetness and a bit of flavor. I think it works beautifully!
1 orange, sliced into thin half-moons
1 lemon, sliced into thin half-moons
½ cup/80 ml brandy
1 (750 ml) bottle red wine
¼ cup/60 ml marmalade or Concord grape jam
1 pound/450 g frozen grapes
Club soda, to serve
At least 8 hours before you plan on serving the sangria, combine the orange and lemon slices and the brandy in a jar to infuse. Refrigerate.
To build the sangria, combine the red wine and the marmalade in a container that can hold at least 2 quarts/1.9 L. Stir until the preserve melts into the wine. Add the soaked fruit and liquid to the wine and stir. Add the frozen grapes. Serve, and cut with club soda.
Note: During the winter, I sometimes leave out the frozen grapes and club soda, dilute the fruit/wine/brandy combination with a little water, warm it on the stove, and call it mulled wine. Somehow, it still works!
RECOMMENDED PRESERVES:
I like marmalade or Concord grape jam, but you can be creative here. If you have some lemon syrup or an already-boozy jam, consider those as an option.
HERBAL FRUIT SPARKLER
MAKES 1 QUART/1 L
When it comes to hot summer days, my drink of choice is a quart-size jar, filled with a combination of ice, jam, muddled fresh herbs, and lots of sparkling water. It’s the thing I make midafternoon to get me through the workday or on lazy weekend evenings when I’m sitting around with family. Often, I make a big batch in a pitcher when I’m having a potluck or dinner party. As time goes on, more and more of my friends are giving up booze, and it’s a really good way to make them feel loved and cared for. I like to add fresh herbs to these sparkling drinks because they add a lot of flavor and do a good job of tempering the sweetness of the jam. You can always leave them out if you don’t want bits of green floating in your drink, or if they just don’t speak to you.
¼ cup/60 ml jam, jelly, or syrup
1 tablespoon soft, fresh herbs
1 cup/140 g ice
3 cups/720 ml sparkling water
In the bottom of a quart-size/1 L jar, combine the jam and herbs. Lightly stir the jam and herbs together. You want to bruise and soften the leaves, without tearing them into bits. Put the ice on top of the mixture and add the sparkling water. Stir to distribute, then serve.
APRICOT BASIL SPARKLER
¼ cup/60 ml apricot jam
6 to 7 fresh basil leaves
1 cup/140 g ice
3 cups/720 ml sparkling water
CHERRY MINT SPARKLER
¼ cup/60 ml cherry jam
10 to 12 fresh mint leaves
1 cup/140 g ice
3 cups/720 ml sparkling water
PINEAPPLE CILANTRO SPARKLER
¼ cup/60 ml pineapple jelly
2 to 3 sprigs cilantro
1 cup/140 g ice
3 cups/720 ml sparkling water
FROZEN TREATS
More than one of my childhood milestones had to do with food. My first sentence was “More mayonnaise, please” and the very first word I ever learned to spell was “ice cream.” I was 18 months old and my parents had taken to spelling things so that I wouldn’t catch on. Sadly for them, it didn’t take long for me to find the key to their game and very soon, I could spell i-c-e c-r-e-a-m right along with them.
Although I’m a lifelong lover of frozen treats, I didn’t start making ice creams and frozen yogurts until fairly recently. A big part of the reason is that as a food writer with a fairly small kitchen, I rarely had space in my freezer to get the ice-cream maker bowl in there for a good, solid chill. The other reason was that I didn’t feel it was worth the investment of time and energy. However, the paradigm shifted when I invested in an ice-cream maker with a compressor and I realized that making sorbets, frozen yogurts, and ice creams with jams, jellies, and canned fruit was a giant shortcut. Normally, if you were making these frozen treats, you’d need to cook and cool any fruit before you could start freezing your treats. When you start with fruit that’s already cooked and canned, you save so much time and deliver so much flavor.
Preserved Peach Sorbet
Orange Marmalade Ice Cream
Jammy Frozen Yogurt
Runny Jelly Granita
Jam and Yogurt Pops
Lemony Plum Pops
Sparkling Grape Pops
Double Strawberry Pops
PRESERVED PEACH SORBET
MAKES 4 CUPS/960 ML SORBET
This idea comes directly from my friend Audra Wolfe. As we both work from home, we have a weekly coffee shop date where we meet up to check in about our various projects before settling down to work for a couple hours. One summer day, she arrived, bursting with the news that a quart-size jar of peaches could be puréed with a little sugar and poured directly into an ice-cream maker for an excellent treat. I adopted the idea, tweaked it slightly, and am sharing it with you here.
3 cups/720 ml drained canned peaches (from 1 canned quart/liter), canning liquid reserved
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
¾ cup/150 g granulated sugar
Place the peaches into a blender and purée with the lemon juice. Measure out ½ cup/120 ml of the reserved peach canning liquid. If there’s not enough, add water to make up the vol
ume. Pour that liquid into a small saucepan and add the sugar. Heat over medium heat just until the sugar has melted.
Add the warm syrup to the peach purée in the blender and purée to combine. Pour the peach mixture into a container and refrigerate until cold, about 45°F/7°C. Freeze according to the manufacturer’s directions for your ice-cream maker. When the sorbet is sufficiently frozen, transfer it to an airtight container, cover tightly, and freeze. It will keep for at least 1 week in the freezer.
RECOMMENDED PRESERVES:
I make this with the peaches I can in fruit juice or light syrup. If your fruit is canned in heavy syrup, consider backing off on the additional sugar. It also works with apricots, plums, nectarines, or pears.
ORANGE MARMALADE ICE CREAM
MAKES 5 CUPS/1.2 L ICE CREAM
One fall, Scott and I went to Ireland. It was a much-needed vacation after an intense year of caring for a sick relative and we reveled in our role as tourists. We wandered historic sites and stately homes, shopped for wool sweaters, and ate a diet heavy in fish, potatoes, brown bread, and ice cream. It was in an ice-cream shop in Killarney that I discovered the magic of marmalade ice cream. It was sweet, creamy, sharp, and bitter all at once. This recipe is the result of my many attempts to capture that flavor. I wouldn’t say it’s exactly right (Irish dairy is in a class all its own), but it’s close enough and is definitely worth making.
2 cups/480 ml heavy whipping cream
1 cup/240 ml whole milk
½ cup/100 g granulated sugar
6 large egg yolks, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon fine sea salt
½ cup/120 ml thick-cut marmalade, chilled in the refrigerator
In a medium saucepan, combine the cream, milk, and sugar and warm over medium heat, stirring regularly, until the sugar dissolves.
Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Add the warm cream mixture to the beaten eggs, 1 tablespoon at a time, until there’s no risk of the warm mixture’s scrambling the eggs. Then, add the remaining cream mixture. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it begins to thicken, 5 to 8 minutes. Add the vanilla and salt.
Pour the custard through a fine-mesh sieve set over a bowl to catch any curdled bits of egg. Refrigerate until cold, about 45°F/7°C. Freeze as instructed by your ice-cream maker.
When the ice-cream base is mostly frozen, fold in the cold marmalade. Transfer the ice cream to an airtight container, cover tightly, and freeze.
RECOMMENDED PRESERVES:
Use a thick-cut orange marmalade the first time you make this and experiment from there.
JAMMY FROZEN YOGURT
MAKES 5 CUPS/1.2 L FROZEN YOGURT
A few years back, there was a frozen yogurt boom in my neighborhood. Within a matter of months, four self-serve yogurt shops opened within a three-block radius of my apartment and if one closed, another would pop up in its place. Sadly, its popularity has waned (two of the yogurt shops were recently replaced by high-end pour-over coffee joints), but I’m okay with it because I can make my own frozen yogurt. A tub of runny, unsweetened yogurt, some sugar, and some jam, and I am set to start churning.
3 cups/720 ml unsweetened whole-milk yogurt (not Greek-style yogurt)
1 cup/200 g granulated sugar
½ cup/120 ml jam
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
Pour the yogurt, sugar, jam, and salt into a blender and purée. Pour the mixture into a container and refrigerate until cold, about 45°F/7°C. Freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions for your ice-cream maker. When the yogurt is sufficiently frozen, transfer it to an airtight container, cover tightly, and freeze. It will keep for at least 1 week in the freezer.
Note: The sugar in this recipe doesn’t just sweeten the yogurt, it also helps maintain a scoopable consistency. You can reduce the sugar if you want, but know that the yogurt might harden and develop ice crystals while in the freezer.
RECOMMENDED PRESERVES:
I like strawberry, raspberry, or cherry best.
RUNNY JELLY GRANITA
MAKES 3 CUPS/720 ML GRANITA
We all have a jar or two of jelly that never quite reached its potential. Whether it’s just a bit soft or well and truly sloshy, when jelly fails the question is always, “What should I do with this?” You can always treat it as you would syrup and stir it into sparkling water or use it up at cocktail hour, but I’d like to offer another option—granita. This icy frozen treat is typically made with fresh fruit, sugar, and water, but I’ve found that delicious batches can be made using frozen fruit, runny jelly, and a little water. Best of all, this is one frozen treat that doesn’t require an ice-cream maker or special mold. You freeze it in a baking dish and break it up with a fork.
1 pound/450 g frozen fruit (choose something that goes nicely with your jelly)
1 cup/240 ml runny jelly or syrup
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon or lime juice
Combine the frozen fruit, jelly, and lemon juice in a blender container and blend until well puréed. Taste the purée and add a pinch of sugar, salt, or more lemon juice to adjust the flavors.
Pour the mixture into a low, wide, freezer-safe container. I like using lidded Pyrex baking pans, as they’re the right size and there’s no risk that you’ll spill the granita liquid all over your freezer.
Freeze for 45 to 60 minutes, or until the liquid has begun to harden around the edges, but isn’t frozen solid. Using a fork, scrape the granita mixture into flakes and return it to the freezer. Repeat the process of freezing and scraping twice more, until the mixture is completely frozen and is quite dry and flaky. The granita will keep in the freezer for about a week, though you may need to rescrape it before serving.
RECOMMENDED PRESERVES:
Runny jellies and faded syrups work best here. If they are of the low-sugar variety, make sure to add extra lemon juice to make up for the lower levels of sweet.
Jam and Yogurt Pops
When I was a kid, we had a set of ice pop molds. They were made of plastic and had different animals molding into the handles (Raina and I always fought over who would get the lion). We used them to freeze orange or apple juice into pops to bring some relief on hot summer days and thought ourselves lucky to have them.
In recent years, the homemade pop game has changed significantly. There have been a wave of fancy pop makers, as well as gourmet pops and paletas coming from both cookbooks and shops. The humble juice pop of my childhood has been left in the dust. Happily, it’s not hard to make impressive pops to wow your kids and friends. All you need is a set of molds, a few jars of jam, and some yogurt.
The average mold makes six pops, with each mold holding about 3 ounces/90 ml. I’ve scaled this formula and the following recipes to produce enough to fill that average set. If your molds take a different volume, you can scale the recipes up or down accordingly.
BASIC JAM AND YOGURT POPS
1 cup/240 ml water
¾ cup/180 ml jam
½ cup/120 ml vanilla yogurt
Combine the water and jam in a blender and blend on low speed until combined. Add the yogurt and blend on low speed until just incorporated.
Pour into your molds, leaving a little space at the top for expansion. Freeze for 5 to 6 hours, or until solid.
To remove the pops from the molds, run them briefly under hot running water until you’re able to wiggle them free.
LEMONY PLUM POPS
Blend together 7/8 cup/210 ml of water, 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, ¾ cup/180 ml of plum jam, and ½ cup/120 ml of lemon yogurt.
SPARKLING GRAPE POPS
Blend together 1 cup/240 ml of sparkling water, ¾ cup/180 ml of grape jam, and ½ cup/120 ml of vanilla yogurt.
DOUBLE STRAWBERRY POPS
Blend together 1 cup/240 ml of water, ¾ cup/180 ml of strawberry jam, and ½ cup/120 ml of strawberry yogurt.
Note: For a more gr
own-up taste, add 4 to 5 torn basil leaves to the blender along with the yogurt.
ESSENTIAL PRESERVES
While this is very much a book about using up your homemade preserves, it didn’t feel like it was right to leave the jams, jellies, pickles, chutneys, relishes, and other preserves entirely out of the game. So, I’ve rounded up ten of my very favorite preserve recipes into this chapter to serve as a resource. Many of these recipes can be thought of as formulas. This means that you can use the recipe for Berry Jam whether you’re working with strawberries, raspberries, or blueberries. The sweet spreads, chutneys, and relishes all yield about 3 pints. The pickles are scaled to produce about a quart. To my mind, that’s enough to be the worth the work, but not so much effort that you’ll spend all day on a single preserve.