365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Monday, January 10, 2022
The Medlar Project
Day 89: The principle is sound. The practice needs perfecting. I cooked the medlar jelly too long, and it set to the consistency of taffy. That said, further experimentation yielded a solution: add a little water to each jar, reheat in a pan of hot water as if de-crystallizing honey, and allow to cool. The jelly will reset because it contains no pectin other than what was in the fruit. Next year, I want to try adapting the recipe to use commercial pectin, but this year's medlar windfall produced four half-pints and four 4-ounce jars of very tasty garnet-coloured jelly. The flavour eludes description. There is a hint of lemony tartness, a slight similarity to persimmon, perhaps a pleasantly earthy overtone suspended in an exotic and aromatic honey. It tastes...well, it tastes like medlars, deliciously so. It would be excellent as a chutney with pork, as mint jelly goes with lamb. Despite the issue of the too-firm set, I would call the experiment a success. It just needs a bit of refining.
Labels:
canning,
medlar jelly,
medlars
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