Monday, April 9, 2018

Spiced Mango Jam

Every time we visit my daughter and son-in-law, she packs with us something for my parents. When we visited in Portland, strawberries were in season and she sent strawberry jam, then. This year, they waited for us, to go and buy a full crate of mangoes that their local Indian store had stocked.

We had bought a book of jams and preserves, from which we adapted the recipe. The original was a mango cardamom jam, which used jamming sugar. Since we don't get that here in the US, we opted to use pectin along with granulated sugar. We also added to the cardamom, some nutmeg and saffron, along with chilli flakes to enhance the flavour.



Spiced Mango Jam



Yield - 3x8oz jars 

Ingredients

1 kg mangoes (peeled and stone removed weight)
450 grams granulated sugar
1 tbsp. whole fruit pectin
6 pods green cardamoms
1/3 of a whole nutmeg
a generous pinch of saffron
1/2 tsp chilli flakes


Method

Put a ceramic plate into the freezer, ready for testing.
Set a deep pan of water to simmer on the stove, ready to sterilize and process the jam jars.
Pulp the peeled and stoned mangoes coarsely.
Put it into a heavy bottom dutch oven, along with the rest of the ingredients, expect for the pectin.


On a medium heat, cook till the sugar dissolves and bring to a boil. Simmer for a further 15 minutes or so, till the fruit softens.
Once the mangoes have cooked down, add the pectin, and stir it in.
Boil rapidly for about 10 minutes, till the jam begins to thicken.
As it gets up to a jam like consistency, put a little dollop of jam on the plate that you put in the freezer. If it is set, the jam shouldn't run.
By now, the jam jars in the water should be ready to fill.


Once you fill the bottles, seal them while the jam is still hot.
Once you open a bottle, put the jam in the fridge, and use a dry spoon to serve.
Enjoy with hot toast, or straight out of the jar!