It’s not easy to get two culinary heavy hitters like Gale Gand and Charlie Trotter to endorse a cookbook, but Madelaine Bullwinkel did.
Praise for “Gourmet Preserves Chez Madelaine” ($14.95, Surrey Books) is well-deserved. She not only develops her own recipes, she offers background on the practice of preserving and easy-to- track techniques.
The author tells you which fruits have high pectin levels and thicken naturally (green apples, blueberries and grapes) and which are low (kiwi, peaches and pears). With cherries now in, and strawberries still selling for a song, there are several imaginative recipes for sweet and savory marmalades, preserves and jam, from onion-apple marmalade to peaches and blueberry sauce.
This incisive paperback is the perfect gift for the person who has always wanted to make preserves but lacked the confidence to try. Finally, there are summer, fall and winter recipes to coincide with the arrival of the seasons. And yes, there are no-sugar recipes too.
– Ellen Sweets
Apple and Onion Marmalade
Apples and onions are frequently paired as a garnish for pork, liver, and cabbage dishes, and they complement each other here. Lemon seemed the natural citrus partner for them in a marmalade. This textured preserve is delicious with cornbread muffins and as a condiment with cold pork or roast beef. Makes 5 cups
Ingredients
2 lemons
2 medium Granny Smith apples
1 small red onion
Water
4 cups sugar
6 stems fresh spearmint
Directions
The night before, scrub the lemons. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the outer, colored peel. Slice these strips into thinner strips 1/8 inch wide. Cut off the remaining peel and the white inner pith. Tie these in cheesecloth bag and reserve. Halve the peeled lemons and thinly slice them, removing seeds as necessary. Combine lemon strips and pulp in an 8-cup measure.
Scrub, quarter, and core the unpeeled apples. Thinly slice the quarters (or chop into coarse dice with rapid on-and-off pulses in the food processor.) Add to the measure.
Peel and thinly slice the onion. Place onions on top of apples in the measuring cup. Combine this mixture with an equal volume of water in a heavy, non-reactive 5-quart pan. Submerge the cheesecloth bag of lemon rinds. Cover and bring to a boil. Uncover and simmer for 15 minutes. Let the mixture cool to room temperature, cover, and let sit overnight at room temperature.
The next day, before discarding, squeeze juices from the cheescloth bag into the pan. Measure the marmalade base and reduce it over high heat to 4 cups.
Stir in sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, waiting for the mixture to return to a boil each time before adding more. Continue to boil until the jell point is reached, usually within 10 minutes. Maintain a boil for a full minute after you establish the jell.
Pour the marmalade into a 2-quart measure. Add the mint stems and leaves tied with string. Crush the mint against the sides and bottom of the container. Let the mint steep in the marmalade for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the mint and pour marmalade into hot sterilized jars to within 1/4 inch of the rims. Wipe the rims clean, attach new lids, and screw caps of tightly. Invert jars briefly to vacuum seal; or process in a boiling water bath, submerged by 1 inch, for 10 minutes.
Quick Cherry Cassis Preserves
Yield: 3 cups
2 pounds pitted, tart cherries (4 cups)
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup Creme de Cassis
3 tablespoons Sure-Jell
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 cups sugar
Combine the cherries and water in a heavy, non-reactive 5-quart pan. Cover and bring to a simmer. Uncover and cook for 10 minutes. Strain the juices. Reserve the cherries.
Bring the Cassis to a simmer in a non-reactive skillet. Flame the boiling liquer to release any residual alcohol. Pour into the cherry juices. Stir the Sure-Jell and lemon juice into the juices.
Recombine the cherries and juices in a clean saucepan and return to a boil. Begin adding sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, returning the liquid to a boil each time before adding more. Continue to boil until the preserve reaches the jell point, which is 8 degrees above boiling temperature as measured on your thermometer. This should take about 10 minutes.
Off heat, pour the preserve into a 2-quart mixing bowl. Allow the preserve to sit for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to redistribute the cherry pieces. Fill hot, sterilized jars to within 1/4 inch of the rims. Wipe the rims clean, attach new lids, and screw the caps on tightly. Invert the jars briefly for a quick vacuum seal; or process in a boiling water bath, submerged by 1 inch, for 10 minutes.
Baked Peach Halves with Blueberry Sauce
When Michigan peaches appear at the farmers’ markets in August, I always search out a few large, impeccably ripe beauties to bake. They seem to sweeten in the oven, with their stuffing of nuts, blueberries, macaroon crumbs, and a black currant liqeur from Dijon, France, called cassis. Served at room temperature with a warm, delicate blueberry sauce, these peaches are summer eating at its best.
Yield: 6 servings
2 tablespoons chopped pecans
6 ripe Freestone peaches
1/3 cup crumbled macaroon cookies
1/4 cup fresh blueberries
3 tablespoons creme de cassis, divided
Sauce
1/2 cup Spicy Blueberry Preserves or Blueberry Jam with Mint
2 tablespoons Simple Syrup
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon creme de cassis
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Toast the pecans on a baking sheet in the oven for 10 minutes. Cool on the bake sheet, coarsely chop, and reserve. Generously butter a large, shallow baking dish.
Halve the peaches, remove the pits, and enlarge the hollows in each half by scoopig out 1 teaspoon of flesh with a melon-baller of grapefruit spoon. Crush together these small peach pieces with the macaroons, add the warm pecans, blueberries, and 2 tablespoons of cassis. Fill the craters of each peach half with this stuffing.
Arrange peaches in the buttered baking dish so they are not touching. Baste each lightly, using a total of 1 table spoon of cassis, and bake for 30 minutes. Remove peaches from the oven and let them cool in the pan.
Sauce:
Warm the jam or preserves with the syrup in a small saucepan. Add the lemon juice and cassis. Serve the peaches at room temperature with the warm sauce.
