Grape Mostarda

Is there anything more succulent than a cluster of dusty yet shiny, tight purple globes hanging on the vine? Whenever I go grape picking, I  really have to restrain myself: I want to just grab them all. It's such a textile event. There is something about grapes that you just want to squeeze. Their weight and firmness feels good in your hand, and of course biting into them is a pleasure of their own. The chewy and slightly tannic skin starts sweet and ends a touch bitter. It yields to the gelatinous yet tensile flesh inside. Both are an almost obvious pleasure, followed by the gratifying separation of the heart-shaped bitter pit with your tongue. Even the spitting out of the seeds is satisfying.

I was thinking of a sweet preparation for these particular red sheridan grapes, but was intrigued by a suggestion from a friend on Instagram. She said chutney. My mind doesn't normally think of a chutney when thinking of grapes, but it was a brilliant idea. I almost made it. In particular, this one from the Cozy Herbivore. But instead I started thinking of mostarda, that fabulous fruity mustard (mustardy fruit?) that hails from Italy. 

Grape Mostarda
Adapted from Grape Mostarda, Bon Appetit
Yield: 2 half-pint jars

About two pounds of local red sheridan grapes (I'm betting any local, sweet variety would do well)
1 small white onion, chopped finely
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of yellow mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon of dried red chili pepper flakes
1 teaspoon of fresh rosemary, chopped
1 tablespoon of candied citrus (or you can use citrus zest)
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon of dijon mustard

First, prep the grapes. Slip the innards from the skin into a saucepan. Reserve the skins in a bowl. Simmer the grape innards for about ten minutes--you will notice the flesh separate from the seeds. Turn off the heat and let it cool a bit. Then press it all through a food mill to remove the seeds. Add the flesh to the skins. Sauté the onion in a small bit of olive oil until just softened. Then add the grapes, and the rest of the ingredients, except the mustard. Get it to a good simmer, and let it cook for about twenty minutes, until it looks glossy and thick. Add the mustard. Turn off the heat and pour into clean jars. Keep refrigerated.

I think this mostarda is best after sitting a few days, and it should keep in the fridge for quite some time. The recipe makes two half-pint jars, and a little goes a long way, so you might want to gift some of this to a friend or serve it at a party with cheese. The color is amazing, and it's slightly zingy due to the red pepper. The little mustard seeds give it a caviar-like pop in each bite. I couldn't resist and we had some for dinner the day I made it: a baguette, a creamy French bleu cheese, soppressata and a bottle of wine. Aren't those the best dinners? The next day I had the leftovers in a sandwich. Heaven! But upon tasting it again today, it's much better now that the intense flavors have had time to mingle.

Plum Conserve

I have been wanting to write a post for about a month now, but this amazing late summer/early fall we've been having in the Hudson Valley has me busy with other things. I'm not complaining! But today, as I soak in the hot sun--it's hitting 80 today--I realize we are very close to the end. I am almost done with closing the garden up, the fig trees have been replanted in their winter pots, and stink bugs are crawling everywhere. It's inevitable that every time we have a last burst of heat, some bug frenzy happens. Last year it was lady bugs, this year, stink bugs. I can feel it everywhere as I walk around my yard. The maples are turning yellow, the purple asters are lining the hill, the goldenrod surrounds the pond, and the bees are busily making haste. I have heard from various places that this year is going to be a snowy and cold winter. Have you noticed all the woolly bear caterpillars out this year? I am seeing them everywhere: fat black ones, little fuzzy black and brown ones, and one huge white one. I haven't seen so many in years.

There is a small cool breeze that underlies the heat of the sun today. It riffles the leaves, and they slowly fall, lazily coating the ground. The neighbor's rooster crows, and the buzz of the bugs seems muffled. Birds call, and dogs whine, chainsaws buzz and trucks lumber by. It's lazy but focused, it seems. The word portentous comes to mind. Everything seems to remind me that quite soon I won't be sitting on the porch sipping a beet-carrot-apple-ginger juice in a t-shirt and shorts.

Even the preserving has slowed down a bit, although this batch of plum conserve is on the stove top as I write. Made with some gleaned tiny blue prune plums, I was looking to make something that was rich and cozy for the coming winter. I asked folks on my Facebook page what I should make, and there were a few good ideas! I have saved some plums to make the kuchen that Rosemary posted.

I adapted this from a recipe for Nutty Plum Conserve from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I removed a bit of sugar (and must admit, it still seems a bit sweet), used currants instead of raisins, and added Pisa liqueur, which is a nutty liqueur similar to Amaretto.

Plum Conserve
yields 5 half-pints, with a little extra for the fridge

2.5 pounds of blue prune plums, halved and pitted
2 cups sugar
1 cup dried currants
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1/2 cup candied citrus peel
1/4 cup orange juice
1 cup coarsely chopped mixed nuts
1/2 cup Pisa liqueur

If your plums are large, quarter them. If they are small, keep them halved. Put plums, sugar, currants, juices and peel in your jam pot and bring them to a boil. While this is cooking, soak the nuts in the liqueur. Let the plum mixture boil for about twenty minutes; they should foam up a bit, and then get glossy and thick. Add the nuts and liqueur, bring back to a boil, and cook for another ten minutes making sure not to scorch the bottom. Process for ten minutes.

Cranberry Molasses and a Giveaway: Put 'em Up! Fruit by Sherri Brooks Vinton

Cranberry molasses! Is this a great idea, or what? I absolutely love pomegranate molasses and use it all the time. Mostly drizzled on salads. So vibrant, so tangy! When I saw this recipe in Sherri Brooks Vinton's newest canning book, Put 'em Up! Fruit, I knew I had to try it. Especially since I had some cranberries languishing in the freezer. And it's a little more local than pomegranates for us easterners.

If you are a canner, you've probably read Brooks Vinton's first book, Put 'em Up, which was structured by the fruit or vegetable to preserve. This book moves in a similar way, but focuses on fruit, and for each recipe of a preserve there is a companion recipe to "Use It Up!" There's a chunk of preserving information in the beginning of the book, and then the fruits start alphabetically, with apples, of course, and everything has a color-coded tab at the top of the page, so you can quickly thumb to a section. The book is colorful and easy to dive into, with beautiful pictures by Hudson Valley photographer, Jennifer May.

It's very obvious that Brooks Vinton has been at this for a while, and her enthusiasm for local produce and making eating well accessible to everyone is immediately evident. She's bubbly about cool things like gastriques and making cider vinegar, but still includes stalwart recipes for applesauce and classic jams. This book truly is for beginners and pros alike.

The cranberry molasses that I tried from the book is so simple! Next time I would probably try lowering the sugar because that's my thing these days, and it might help the ability to cook it longer without it jelling. The only thing I'll take Brooks Vinton to task for is not giving you an idea for the left over cranberry pulp. The book is chock full of little tips like this, so I'll let it pass! I used a cup  in some muffins, and I put the rest in a smoothie. I hope to try the molasses with the companion Use It Up! recipe: duck confit salad with cranberry molasses. Could that sound ANY better? No, it can't!

Cranberry Molasses

adapted from Put 'em Up Fruit by Sherri Brooks Vinton

Yield: 2 cups

4 cups of water

1/2 pound of cranberries

2 cups dark brown sugar (I used light brown sugar)

Bring the water and cranberries to a boil, and let them simmer for about 15 minutes, letting the berries pop and soften. Strain the juice through a fine sieve to get all that gelatinous pulp and seeds out. The juice is brilliant red!

Bring the juice (it will be about 2 cups worth) and sugar to a boil in your jam pan. Let it simmer until it coats the back of the spoon. Brooks Vinton recommends 10 to 15 minutes, but I went longer, about 30 neglecting to notice the comment: "the molasses will thicken as it cools." Mine was thick and lovely, but did jell slightly upon cooling. It is so soft though, that a few stirs with a fork turns it back into syrup. You can process this in a boiling water bath for ten minutes, or stash in the fridge for up to three weeks.

 

Please visit the book's webpage where you'll find a trailer, and videos to some of the recipes in the book. There are other chances to win a copy of the book! Some are over already, but some haven't even started yet. Check out this list of folks on the book blog tour:

April 8: Food In Jars

April 9: Punk Domestics

April 10: Autumn Makes & Does

April 11: Local Kitchen

April 12: Mission: Food

April 16: Tigress in a Jam

April 17: Daily Dish Recipes

April 18: Shockingly Delicious

April 19: The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking

April 22: From Scratch Club

Congratulations to the winner: Deborah Rosen. Many thanks to all who entered! There's still time to win at The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking and From Scratch Club!

Thanks to Storey Publishing, I have one copy of Put 'em Up! Fruit to give away. To enter for a chance to win, leave a comment on this post. Comments will close at 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, April 19, 2013. The winner will be chosen at random and be posted to the blog the next day. With Blogger it seems I can't email commenters directly (your email address remains anonymous to everyone, even me), so if you are not linked to a blog please leave a way for me to reach you, or check back to see if you won. And my sincere apologies, but only U.S. residents are eligible.

Disclosure: I was provided a copy of Put ‘em Up! Fruit free for the purposes of review and participation in the blog tour. One copy will be provided to the giveaway winner, courtesy of Storey Publishing. I received no monetary compensation and all opinions are my own.

Candied Calamondins

I recently got an amazing package in the mail from my mother. It was filled with calamondins: leetle, teeny, tiny oranges with a super sour bite. They can be found, on a bush or small tree, in the tropical south zones. Originally from Southeast Asia, they have been planted here as an ornamental, but you know me, I'm wanna eat it! I received about five pounds (me to my mom after she sent me a small handful to inspect: "No, that's not enough, I need more"). So far I've started calamondins in gin, and salt-preserved calamondins. As it so often goes during this time of year, I'm a little marmaladed out. I was wracking my mind for something new. After paging through a million books, I settled on this recipe for Kumquat Preserves from this kooky book:

You probably have a stack of vintage cookbooks like these, right? I particularly like the ones that have canning sections even though you are not to follow them for canning, as they are outdated and possibly unsafe, as per USDA and the National Center for Home Food Preservation. However, my personal guidelines for these recipes are that usually fruit is a safe bet. I do my research, I compare recipes, I check the sugar, etc. I decided to can these at ten minutes. They are so high in acid, and the only other ingredients are sugar and honey, that I felt it was safe to can. But that's me. I'm crazy like that.

It is said that calamondins can be used in recipes like kumquats, but I don't know about that. Calamondins have very thin skin and are very juicy and filled with sort of big pits. More like a really small tangerine. I love these old recipes. They take a little while to decipher. Just a small paragraph and you're on your own. Which I like. I will note that I almost didn't add the 2 cups of honey the original asked for. 2 cups of sugar and 2 cups of honey seemed like a lot to me. Then I realized that the honey is the glucose that keeps the sugar from crystallizing, so I quickly threw in a 1/4 cup of honey. It seems to have worked, but maybe I'm making that up. 

I am really looking forward to these as a garnish for a drink, come the warmer weather. They are certainly candied yet very tart. Maybe with that calamondin gin I'm making. And don't forget about the nice syrup you get as a extra bonus! The most brilliant idea I came across for calamondins is to freeze them and use them as ice cubes. Maybe I can get my mom to send me some more...

Candied Calamondins

adapted from My Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, 1940

Note: this is a three day or so procedure.

1 quart of calamondins

1 quart of water

2 cups of sugar

1/4 cup of honey

Calamondins, when plucked from the plant, will rip the stem right out of the skin. When you pick them you might want to use clippers or shears so that they stay intact until you need to use them. Otherwise, they shrivel up, and who wants that? When you are ready to use them, pull the stems gently out. You will have a small hole where each stem was. Perfect. If you were preparing kumquats, you would prick the skins. This is so they can absorb the sugar.

Soak the fruit overnight in salt water. 1 quart of water, 1 quart of fruit, 1 teaspoon of salt. Why? I don't know. Maybe you can tell me. I was skeptical, but strangely I did it.

Drain them. Cover with fresh water in a preserving pot and bring to a boil. Cook until tender. Which was a few minutes. These are very thin-skinned fruit. Drain.

Have this heating up in another good preserving pot: 2 cups of sugar, 4 cups of water, 1/4 cup of honey. Once this is simmering, add the drained, tenderly boiled fruit in. Simmer until the fruits look translucent, and the syrup is thick. (When did we stop spelling syrup sirup?) Pour this mixture into a glass bowl and cover with wax paper.

Let stand for two days. 

Bring back to a simmer for ten minutes and cook until it looks right. For me that meant thick syrup, candied fruits. I ladled the calamondins into hot 4 ounce jars and processed in a boiling water bath for ten minutes. If you prefer, pour the whole lot into a quart jar, seal it. When it's cool put it in the fridge. They will probably last until you have a nice cocktail party. And then they will be gone!

For more a-quat-ic inspiration go check out Michael's candied mandarinquats and Tigress' fermented sweet preserved kumquats!

Apricot Plum Jam with Orange Pectin

Before full-on pantry raiding happens, the big freezer clean-out must occur. That is to say, that all the goodies in the freezer have to be canned or eaten. Particularly before a shipment of forty pounds of local chicken meat comes to roost. I'm a bit of a hoarder, so I still had two big bags of apricots and plums from last fall. Instead of doing small batches, I took them out in one fell swoop by combining the two. I feel that apricots and plums go incredibly well together. And because I had a jar of orange pectin in the freezer too, I figured I'd make the jam with that.

Apricots don't have much by way of pectin, but they have a nice level of acidity. Plums vary on pectin, and I've read a lot of varying reports on that. I think it's safe to say that if you have a sweet plum, say the black ones, you don't have a lot of pectin. I was working with a tart but sweet Santa Rosa, which are just a gorgeous pinky-peach color. I didn't want the orange pectin to overpower the flavor of the fruit, so I used much less than the ratio of the jelly I made with orange pectin, hence, it wasn't as firm.

This jam took forever to jell. It was sheeting like mad, however, not quite at the wrinkle stage, but I pulled it because it seemed to be overcooking and the flavor was changing from that fresh fruit stage to a more sugared fruit stage. After sitting, it still is a soft set but holds together nicely on toast. It's a real soft spread, as they say. It's a gorgeous carnelian color, and although sweet--even though the sugar ratio is quite low--it retained its punchy acidity, thanks to the fruit.

I thought about these measurements for a while and I'm still not entirely sure of them. I didn't add lemon juice, because the pectin has a bunch in it. I think if you are looking for a firmer set, you might want to have equal amounts pectin to fruit, so I should have had eight cups. That would have been too much for my pot. Next time I might make a much smaller batch.

4 cups plums, halved and drupe removed

4 cups apricots, halved and, or you can say, pits removed

4 cups of sugar

2 cups of orange pectin

Bring all to a boil. How long it will take? Who knows. I pulled this at about 219 degrees? I leave that up to you, mon frere. Process in hot jars for ten minutes.

Shallot Confiture

This month's Tigress' Can Jam focused on alliums, or the onion family, only one of the largest plant genera in the world. Yes, the world! Another great pick! There were a ton of recipes that called to me, more than I thought, but this one sang my name. I am so excited about this. Shallot Confiture. Lord, it's gorgeous. Steve was totally making fun of me. When I was pulled it from the boiling water, I was doing Rocky poses and kissing my biceps. I am a total dork. So what. Go ask that woman who wrote the article in Slate, she knows what a trendy loser I am! (I know I shouldn't give her more press, but whatever, I'm feeling punchy. I think it's funny that she owns Mes Confitures. Now who's calling who ridiculous? Okay, got that out of my system.)

So: is this ever going to look pretty on a shelf, all backlit, or what?? Shallot Confiture, let's just say it again, shall we? This was a four-day extravaganza of boiling and sitting and boiling and sitting. But that's all easy, really. In the end you have a bunch of translucent purplish-brown pods that have been infused with a spice-laden vinegar syrup. Vinegar syrup? How can you be so good? To be honest, I haven't really thought of how I'm going to eat this. This is no work horse chutney or every day jelly. This is something that deserves the spotlight. The suggestion is warm or cold, with meats. I'm thinking with a pork roast, or a salad even? On top of ice cream? I don't know, help me out. I'm a little star struck at the moment. The pictures do it no justice at all. (It's been gray and rainy for days.)

The recipe is from the surprisingly good book, The Everything Canning and Preserving Book by Patricia Telesco with Jeanne P. Maack. There are some really interesting recipes in here. To be honest, I was turned off by the title--too general, and boring--but I was wrong. There are some interesting ideas in there. The recipe itself was clear and concise. I made a micro-batch and split it by a third. I should have done the whole thing because it was time and effort, and I'd be happy just looking at more of it on the shelf. There's a lot of caraway in this, which I wasn't sure of. But it works. The spices are just magnificent: spicy and peppery, sweet and tart. What I kept on wondering was: who made this up and why for?? It seemed like it would be good in an ornate bowl on a Renaissance table filled with fruit, wine and large joints of meat.

Here is my small-batch and to the point recipe:

1 pound of shallots

1/2 cup pickling salt

2 3/4 cider vinegar

1 cup and 1 T sugar

1 cardamom pod

1/2 tsp lemon zest

A two inch piece of cinnamon

1/2 tsp dried chili pepper

1/2 tsp whole cloves

1 tsp black peppercorns

1/8 cup of caraway seeds

Day One: Peel shallots, leaving root end intact. Put in bowl, sprinkle with salt. Add water to cover, stirring to dissolve salt. Submerge shallots completely with a weighted plate. Cover with a towel, put in a cool place and let sit 24 hours.

Day Two: Drain and rinse shallots, and dry them with a towel. Put vinegar and sugar in a pot. Put all spices, except caraway, in a ball or cheesecloth and add to pot. Add caraway. Medium heat until sugar dissolves. Then bring to boil--and boil for ten minutes. Add shallots and simmer for fifteen. Remove pot from heat and let sit, covered, for 24 hours.

Day Three: Bring shallots slowly to a boil. Simmer for fifteen minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let sit another 24 hours.

Day Four: Slowly bring shallots to a boil again. Simmer until shallots are golden brown and translucent. (Mine stayed a little purple.) Discard spice ball. Place into sterilized jars. Remove air pockets. Process for ten minutes. Store in a cool, dark place for 2 to 3 months for flavors to develop. Kiss those guns.

Marm: Orange Fig and Orange Earl Grey

Well, we all have our problems, don't we? Mine is marmalades. Can't get them out of my kitchen. I guess I've had worse problems in prior days. Making preserves is keeping me off the streets. Keeping me honest. Keeping me real.

Okay, so enough of that. I have been doing micro batches, and it's been so much fun. Check it:

I had four cups of peels and pulp that I brought to a boil with two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice and then let cool overnight in the fridge. The next afternoon I measured two cups and added 2/3 of a cup of sugar per cup of orange. Then I added 8 ounces of chopped, very soft dried mission figs. The resulting marmalade is gooey and rich, the figs add a smooth texture and a mellow to the peel's bitterness. This made three pints.

The next day, I used the balance of the oranges with the same 2/3 cup sugar per cup ratio, but as it reached the jel stage I poured in eight ounces of very concentrated Earl Grey tea (four bags, opened). It took forever to get it back to the jelling point, and I still think it's closer to a syrupy consistency. But how inspired is marmalade with tea in it? And Earl Grey, no less. I mean, really. To be sure, it's not my invention, I lifted the idea from Christine Ferber.

I have to admit this is a rushed post with uninspired photos. Today was a gorgeous day and I spent the good part of it out of doors, chopping up the many downed branches from our latest spate of storms. I dug among the beds, pulling back the warm blanket of leaves to see so many shoots coming up, some of which perplexed me: what did I plant here? I also sprinkled some buckwheat seed in one of the beds just because I wanted to plant something. I tidied the shed. I pruned all of the ornamental grasses. I played in the thick mud by the barn, daydreaming about the chickens I plan to get next week. I did a lot of dreaming, actually, listening to the stream gurgle by, watching the ice melt on the pond, wondering where I could squeeze in all the squash I want to grow. Lots of planes growled by, hawks swirled soundlessly on thermals. How am I ever going to find time to write once this season is in full swing?

Ginger Pear Preserves

I've been so obsessed with making jelly that I've been ignoring preserves. These ginger pear preserves have made me realize what I had been missing. I can't wait to have them on yogurt, on toast, on ice cream or, yes, straight out of the jar. What inspired me was some local Flemish Beauty pears on sale by the half peck. I'm usually not interested in peeling and dealing with pears, instead just bypassing the work and eating them out of hand. But when you set out to do it, it's really not a bother at all. I love using a melon baller for scooping out the seeds of a pear. And the peels came off pretty easy. I get into the rhythm of the chore and soon enough it's over. I've done cases of fruit. A half peck ain't nothing. It's always the anticipation that gets me.

Ginger Pear Preserves, The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

5 1/2 cups diced, peeled, cored pears (I used a bit more)

Grated zest and juice of 3 limes (I used one lime and two tangerines; I really like the tangerine zest floating in the jam--pretty!)

2 1/3 cups sugar

1 tbsp grated ginger

Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil in a big heavy pot, stirring to dissolve sugar. Once boiling, cook for fifteen minutes until mixture thickens. Check for gel stage. When it has been reached ladle hot preserves into prepared jars. Process in water bath for ten minutes.

Concord Grapes, Apricots and Apple Cider Donut Holes

I'm sitting here with a small container of apple cider donut holes that are, I think, superior to the actual donut. Thick with sugar and cinnamon they are still a little crisp from the fryer. Oh, I do love this time of year! All hail the apple cider (insert type of fried dough here).

But what I wanted to talk about was Concord grapes. The other day we purchased a basket of them for baby's birthday party because they looked cool and harvest-y, but then, guess what, oh yeah, then you have almost a full basket left over. So, what do you do? Well, if you are a crazy person like me who can't bear to see anything go to waste, you will do this: pick over all the grapes (which smelled so wonderful, to me it's a sweet, heady, perfumed mix of summer and fall), remove them from the stem, separate them from the raisin-y, moldy ones, pinch every bloody grape to remove their jacket, take all the pulp and simmer it in a sturdy pot, strain said pulp to remove seeds, return pulp to the pan and add the reserved jackets, bring back to a simmer, add a cup of sugar and two tablespoons of lemon juice, bring to a rolling boil and then jar the gorgeous deep purple stuff, all the while thinking, I will never, ever do that stupidity again.

I will say that the skins ruin it a bit. I used a recipe for the filling for grape pie, which, maybe because it got cooked in the oven afterwards the skins softened a bit. If there is to be a next time (which, stupid me, there probably will) I would just follow a recipe for grape jelly instead which bypasses the skinning and adding of the skins.

The next day I made apricot jam with low sugar pectin. I don't mind pectin. I know purists will demure, but as I say, what the jell! (You know it's bad when you begin making really awful pectin jokes. Wow.)