Blueberry, ginger and kaffir lime leaf Jam
This is a jam that I have made using the humble blueberry. The chosen preserving method that I have chose is water bath canning. These are the websites that I referred to, to clear any safety doubts that I had on Jam canning, http://www.freshpreserving.com/getting-started, http://foodinjars.com/canning-101-archive/ and http://foodinjars.com/2011/07/urban-preserving-blueberry-ginger-jam/. As for the flavor profile that I have decided on, I referred to this resourceful chart below, for a rough idea of matching flavors.
This is the recipe that I used for my Blueberry, Ginger and Kaffir Lime Leaf Jam :
- 4 cups of fresh blueberries
- 1 1/2 cup of raw honey
- 3 inches of fresh ginger, peeled, grated
- 2 branches of kaffir lime leaves, 10 leaves chiffonade
- 1 lemon, juice and zest
The process is as stated below:
- 4 cups of fresh blueberries
- 1 1/2 cup of raw honey
- 3 inches of fresh ginger, peeled, grated
- 2 branches of kaffir lime leaves, 10 leaves chiffonade
- 1 lemon, juice and zest
The process is as stated below:
These were the ingredients that I used, the amounts shown in the picture is lacking of 1 cup of blueberry. The image below is what it looks like when I have placed the mixture of all the ingredients together in a pot and heated for 5 minutes.
This blueberry mixture is more akin to a sauce and it was left to simmer for about 1 hour and 30 minutes. Note that this recipe does not require any pectin for jelling. While the mixture is left to simmer, the jam jars are placed in a water bath and heated to warm the jars.
The heating of the jars is to prevent the jar from breaking when the hot jam is added to it. If the temperature differs too much, the jar might break from the heat.
This was how the jam looked like with 45 minutes of simmering, I added the 2 branches of kaffir lime leaves into it, just to try and add a more familiar Asian flavor to it.
This is how the jam looked like when it was done simmering and reducing. It's a far cry from what it was originally and tasted even more so. Next, to test if the jam was done and ready for canning.
I placed a spoon of jam onto a plate that I placed into the freezer for 5 minutes.
When you move the jam, it should have a thick consistency and it should not have a syrup that would flow back into the center. For more methods and precise measures, you can follow the website posted here, http://foodinjars.com/2010/07/canning-101-how-to-ensure-that-your-jam-sets/.
The next step is to place the jam into the jar, wiping off any excess on the rims or lids, if it's not properly cleaned, the trapped jam on the rims would prevent the jar from sealing. The lid has to be tighten just enough to prevent any insects from entering, but loose enough that air can still exit for proper sealing of jars. As I have limited equipments, I had to do one jar at a time. The jars have to be placed onto a jar rack, and boiled for 10-15 minutes. As I did not have a jar rack, I substituted a kitchen cloth as a make-shift jar rack. The jar rack is to prevent the movement of the jars due to the vigorous boiling it has to go through, and thus prevent any risks of breaking in the pot. It has to be boiled with the pot lid on, until a POP sound can be heard from the seal, and the seal on top has sunken inwards.
After the jar has been boiled for 15 minutes, it was left out at room temperature for 12 hours to cool down before being put into the refrigerator. The picture above shows the how the jam is set after it was cooled even without any added pectin. The jam had a strong grape smell and gives a big whiff of ginger. Not to be prideful, but I honestly feel that the color of the resulting jam was really attractive to the eye, due to the dark red-violet color. The taste of it was not overly sweet, combined with the tartness of the blueberries themselves, as well as the lemon juice, it gave just the right amount of acidity to sweetness ratio. The taste of ginger was there, complementing the blueberries in very small degrees, perhaps a little bit too small. What I would change about this recipe, would be to replace the kaffir lime leaves, which gave the jam a sort of green tea-ish flavor, and maybe substitute it with very fine slices of lemongrass, with a few more inches of grated ginger to bring it to a flavor that I'm more familiar with, combining with a fruit that I have never cooked with before. I think that it would result in a very interesting flavor combination. I would consider this attempt both a success and a failure. A success in the way that I am quite proud of myself to be able to achieve these results despite it being my first time, but also a failure because I should have cooked the jam for a shorter period of time for the jam to be a little bit more spreadable and also because of the resulting flavor which was not as nice as I had imagined. It was overall a very rewarding experience and I look forward to more jam making in the future, experimenting with flavors like roasted tomato jam and such.