As far as I can remember, the greatest excitement of my children's taste buds back to the late summer of 82 - when I was eight years old. I spent my days working in a heat wave without water or hat in the Britain of the Interior that some evil tongues say yet so wet, her arms thrown up to the shoulders in the bushes with thorns sometimes three times as tall as my three apples and half the time, picking blackberries. That summer, baskets exploding under the weight of fruit wide as a two-franc piece. There were so sharp that hung on the vines wilt, on slopes, in the roads we traveled on a bicycle and who led us in a place called "The Vern" (POULLAOUEN, Finistère; see photographs of the house and hamlet in 1965 and 2008), we did not know where to start my brother and me. Between two sticks - our way of telling us as we love ... 'End, especially my big brother because I was dreaming rather see (away) to pass under a combine with the operator apparently asleep face down on the wheel and foot on the accelerator pedal, or be trampling by a herd of dairy cows infuriated by the bite of a horsefly, or better yet be asphyxiated by the gases of the stinking manure pit in which a poor child's soul, innocent essence, would have helped him to slip in touting the health baths button (s) e, good idea, do not care that history was finally at peace, the dirty kid! - Between two sticks, I said, we were raising hundreds of blackberries, we led a bitter harvest, none of these shrubs do we escaped. As this did not, we swallowed by dozens on the way, the tongue, teeth, lips, chin, neck, fingers, arms, t-shirts, shorts and tennis shoes or black purple sweet juice ripe fruit to perfection. We had spent so much time picking, perched on tiptoe or hanging from the branches of hazel, which groaned under our weight, large jigs, that we did not realize we had both lost our first watches Quartz offered two months earlier by our Grandpa. We will find one of the years later in the thicket where I was sure to get the feel of my wrist, grabbed by spines, rusty and obviously unusable. At home, we drive turbines also: my little sister sorted, washed and dried my father, my mother began to macerate in the sugar crystal, cooked and put in pot of kilograms of jam or jelly and blackberry I stamped in Until the jars cool, the jam takes and we can finally eat on buttered slices of fresh bread - salted butter, naturally. Let me tell you what a pleasure it was, what a feeling of pride of accomplishment we felt then. However, if I was getting into, I fear not having time to tell you that after the blackberries, the frenzy that had won the family had remained intact until after summer vacation, once our little house in the Paris region reinstated the trunk of the car just unloaded his luggage and pots of blackberry jam filled up again with a tremendous amount of plums from plums, apples, pears and quinces. Our parents trusted the task without complaint and we are eager to discover these wonders in pots perched at the top of the kitchen cabinet so that we can access it on the sly without running the risk of breaking our neck.
Since that time, I devote an inordinate and unconditional love to jam. If the blackberry wins all the votes clearly - albeit well after the chestnut cream, real cream, brown, I understand that I would never do because they are too lazy, that which requires hours and hours of patience picking fruit in the forest, to the sorting, washing, splitting them to the boil once, to peel them first time, to boil them a second time to peel them again to stop having finger at them reduce the syrup and turn those treasures finally the most fabulous jams, creamy if we say the cream, the only grandparents my beautiful Oiselle honor us each year for sixteen years (know- I never quite enough to express the happiness I feel whenever I delight?) - if the blackberry wins every vote certainly, I said, it's hard not to love a jam , especially if it is homemade - the regulars of this blog would be realized. In recent weeks, as I had never before expressed the need considering that I had enough knowledge to have often observed my mother, my father and my Grandma Phine do and repeat the same gestures and ordered patients, and enough imagination and knowledge of products outside the box and hackneyed by centuries of practice, I got myself a little book that I would strongly recommend to those carrying out the barn jam ...
ed. I read (price: 4.75 €)
Beyond ideas and (damn) tempting, the perfect method described by the "fairy jams" deserves you're interested. I do not speak for me indeed, because I feel while reading that I have never cooked jam otherwise. But if you're new, you're afraid to get started and you prefer to eat the jam that prepares you with love Great Grandma - nearly 90 years and still going strong, except that sometimes it confuses the salt and sugar - you should definitely get this book published today in pocket format. Enjoy, like me, the benevolent Christine Ferber is selected and harvested fruit with love. As she would her children, Christine Alsatian the pampers, pampers them, she cleans, wipe gently, with the necessary authority in the gesture, she carefully peeled, cut them so very regular, she withdraws the heart, it makes them marinate, macerated, forcing them to give the best of themselves, until cooked when they are immersed in this bath of molten sugar few brief minutes to pickling. Christine Ferber knows how to sublimate his subjects. Why not you?
After that, if the achievement of jams always scares you, then you're nothing unless large timid or fearful lazy. For now, here are some recipes for jams and jellies made with the seasons, beautiful and well advised by the Head of pastry Nordemirerschwihr of Nihrmidorviwish ... ... Damn, that's not what most nan! The pastry Niedermorschwihr. Ah! That's better. (Pffiou, no piece of cake, eh!)
Warning! I repeat myself a little for some, but I always decreases by at least 50 or 150 g of sugar for making jams. Per 500 g fruit net (without core and skinless), routinely add 400 g of sugar and juice of 1 lemon. I decreases from 50 to 100 g of sugar, when I want to make jams alleviated. Note that these will keep well as long and complete rest in refrigerator after cooling and before being eaten.
Hereinafter, a first recipe ...
candied apricot jam
This culinary sunshine is freely inspired by Christine Ferber ( My Jams, "Apricots shepherd", p.65). The ziozios and wholesale Pater 'of fans are chubby dodo: a yoghurt or a slice of cake is a treat! To glue, however it will wait a few months back as the season ...
Ingredients
600 gd'abricots ripe but firm enough, 400 of brown sugar, 100 ml water juice of 1 lemon
Procedure
Day 1 - Wash and dry fruits. Cut them into quarters and remove the stones. In a large glass bowl, combine the apricot quarters sprinkle with lemon juice and sugar. Marinate in the refrigerator overnight.
Day 2 - In a high-sided pan, pour the preparation and take it to the boil slightly. Remove from heat. Book. Once cooled, remove skin neighborhoods apricot. Bring again to a simmer for 2 minutes. Renew broth 2, 4 and 6 hours later for a maximum confit apricots. Book another night in the fridge.
Day 3 - Drain the preparation, reserve fruit juice and bring to a boil collected. With a candy thermometer, check the concentration of the syrup to 105 ° C. Skim. Once the temperature reached, gently add the candied apricot quarters. Keep cooking at low heat for 2 minutes. Pour into jars clean as well you will return once closed to sterilize "English".
's all for now ... For more recipes jam (jam melon, vanilla and lime, plum jam, vanilla and Gewürztraminer, plum jam and vanilla, fig jam, honey and lavender jelly muscadine grape, kiwi and green tomato jam), come back later ! :-)
