Now is the time to start gathering your hedgerow fruits and begin making your wines, jellies and jams. A lot of the fruits, berries, nuts and the various Fungi's are beginning to ripen in our countryside, this is free food and if you have the time to gather it in and follow some simple recipes the rewards are worth it.
Today I will tell you how to make Crab Apple Jelly, this simple to make jelly tastes absolutely great with Pork and in my opinion tastes equally as good as any shop bought apple jelly if not better. The fruits of the Crab apple trees are ready now to gather, try to collect them from trees that are not to near to a busy road, if you can find them in a hedgerow or small wood away from the road this is the best place to collect them from.
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You will need some sterilised jam jars with tops or papers to seal in the jelly after you have made it, a large pan to boil the fruit, a thermometer and muslin cloth or a proper bag to strain the juices through and separate the fruit. And the juice from a lemon.
Ingredients.
4 lbs of Crab Apples.
4lbs of Caster Sugar.
Juice from 1 Lemon.
Wash and prepare fruit, slice apples in half discard any bruised fruits and put into a large saucepan with just enough water to cover them. Now bring the fruit to the boil and simmer until the fruit has gone soft,
this takes around thirty minutes. Next, pour into a jelly bag or through several layers of muslin suspended over another pan and let it drain overnight ( DO NOT SQUEEZE the bag as it can turn your juice cloudy ). Now measure your juice, add your sugar and the juice of the Lemon, bring it to the boil stirring it to help dissolve the sugar. Once it begins to boil continue the boiling of the pans contents, remove any froth and keep the boil rolling for around 40 minutes to reach the set point, times vary. Now for the tricky part, to test if your juice is ready to set, chill a desert spoon in the fridge beforehand. Dip the chilled spoon into the pan and if it has set it will start to solidify on the back of the spoon, it must do this before you can pour your fruit juice into your jars. You may want to buy a proper jam making thermometer to help you with this but it is just as easy to do it without. When your fruit has reached the set point it is now ready to pour into your jam jars. Your jars must have been sterilised beforehand and they need to be warm when your fruit is poured into them, you can keep them warm by standing them in a bowl of hot water or putting them into a warm oven. Now to finish, pour the juice into the pre warmed and sterilised jam jars, tightly seal or place your jam papers on top of the jelly, allow to cool before moving, then store in a cool dark place until ready for use. If you have made it right your jelly should keep for up till twelve months, serve it with any meat but Pork is favourite and it also tastes nice on toast.
Foot Note;
The amounts of Sugar used can be adjusted to your own taste ie; more or less makes it bitter or sweeter to the taste, around 1lb of sugar to 1 pint of juice is the norm. In my Gran's kitchen she had a hook or nail to suspend the juice from when straining it, you can get round this by tying the corners of your jelly bag or muslin cloth to the four legs of a high stool turned upside down or again you can buy a gadget from a decent cook shop or hardware store that will do this.
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