Handbook of Preserves E-Book

Lindy Wildsmith

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

In this highly illustrated book, experienced cookery teacher, Lindy Wildsmith, details everything you need to know about preserving fruit, vegetables, fish, meat and game, with useful tips and mouth-watering recipes. No matter how new you are to the craft, your everyday eating can be enhanced with unforgettable flavours. Basic techniques such as sterilization, pasteurisation and preserving methods are described, as are the potential pitfalls and helpful rescue techniques should things go wrong. Master recipes with clear step-by-step instructions, followed by suggested variations to help you experiment with your favourite flavours, and learn how to match spices, aromatics, herbs and drinks to the right fruit, vegetable, meat or fish.

Leseprobe

First published in 2022 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2022

© Lindy Wildsmith 2022

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7198 4164 4

Cover design by Blue Sunflower Creative

Photographic credits

Covers images and images on pages 2, 6, 9, 10, 14, 28, 35, 46, 62, 72, 92, 104, 134 by Caz Holbrook.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Honey Without Bees

Chapter 2 Essential Stuff

Chapter 3 Jamming: Jam, marmalade, jelly and fruit cheese

Chapter 4 Sundries: Curds, candied peel, Christmas mincemeat, cranberry relish and cordial

Chapter 5 Sugar, Spice, Vinegar and All Things Nice: Chutney and ketchup

Chapter 6 In a Pickle: Pickles in vinegar, wine and extra-virgin olive oil

Chapter 7 Salt of the Earth: Ferments and pickles

Chapter 8 Gone to Pot: Pots, confits, rillettes and rillons

Index

Introduction

Today when we think of preserves, we think mostly about jams, jellies, marmalades, chutneys, cordials, pickles, ketchups and other sugared treats. These much-loved comestibles are relative newcomers to the delicious panoply of preserves. It was not until the arrival of cheap sugar from the West Indies in the nineteenth century that they appeared on the family table. Prior to this, sugar was a luxury item, reserved for the highest tables in the land, as prized and as rare as the exotic spices arriving from the East.

Well-stocked shelves featuring jars of jam, jelly, marmalade, chutney, cordial, pickles, ketchup and other treats.

As we look back into our distant culinary past, instead of sugar we find salt. For hundreds of years salt was as essential, expensive and just as sought after as crude oil was throughout the twentieth century. Salt was as essential to life as breathing. Salting and drying were the only ways of preserving food. Conserved foods were the mainstay of everyone’s diet from peasants to kings. Salting meat, fowl and fish in times of plenty kept everyone going through the lean winter months. Without salt, whole nations would have starved and voyages of discovery would never have been made: we might even still believe the world was flat and dreams of empire may never have been achieved.

When man discovered food lasted longer when hung near a fire, strung in the wind, buried in the sand or laid in the sun to dry, it was no longer necessary to keep moving in search of food and hunter-gatherers began to settle down near lakes or rivers. They started to make cooking pots of clay in which seawater could also be evaporated to make salt, which was able to draw moisture out of flesh, so drying it and preserving it even longer. These became essential life skills and remained so for thousands of years.

With the arrival of fridges, freezers, vacuum packs and ready-made meals in the last century, there was no longer the need to preserve food. Nonetheless we still crave the unique tastes that develop in them as chemical changes occur during processing. The texture, the colour and the taste intensifies, becoming richer and developing into new flavours. Many speculate about the fifth taste, that certain something, that quality of savouriness, which you cannot quite put your finger on, the deliciousness, something that is not sweet, sour, bitter or salty. The Japanese call it umami and equate it scientifically to monosodium glutamate (MSG), which exists naturally in our food. Parmesan has umami, as do sun-dried tomatoes. A stock known as dashi, made from ingredients including dried tuna flakes or dried mushroom, is the basis of much of Japanese cooking and imparts this special quality to the food.

As water evaporates in the preserving process, whether through drying, salting or boiling and sweetening, bacteria is held at bay, prolonging the shelf life, and intensifying and changing the flavours of the foods we eat, making them irresistible, giving them the special taste that we love.

We can, of course, simply buy these things: there are more specialists than ever working across the world, using old techniques enhanced by modern technology. There are sheds, workshops and farmhouse kitchens where confits, rillettes and potted titbits are made, as they were hundreds of years ago. There are cottage industries producing jams, chutney, bottled sauces, cordials and drinks. We have a seemingly endless appetite for good old-fashioned fayre and you will find that the ones we make ourselves are undeniably superior to even the finest artisan product.

ONCE MASTERED, THE PRESERVER’S SKILL IS INVALUABLE

Preserving fruit and vegetables, fish and meat are age-old processes that have at their core something magical: turning base metals into gold, changing water into wine, arresting the march of bacteria. Well, perhaps not as magical as alchemy, but nonetheless extraordinary.

Preserving is a skill that can be dabbled in from time to time or reward total involvement. It does not have to involve a great deal of time or expensive and complex equipment. It is a lot of fun, but you do need patience. Preserving is not an exact science: knowhow plus science over love and patience makes the best preserve. You can give as much of yourself to it as you like, and the more you give the more pleasure you will derive from it. Be warned, however: it is addictive and you will find you want to keep on experimenting.

It is a common misapprehension that preserving is a good way of using up inferior ingredients. On the contrary, use only quality produce and preserve it with the best vinegar, oil, fat, wine, herbs, sugar, salt and spice. You will only get out what you put in.

The spices and herbs we use every day, such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger, white mustard seed, aniseed, juniper, garlic and chilli peppers have antiseptic qualities. Some spices such as nutmeg, mace and aniseed also help preserve the flavour of food. Herbs like dill, thyme, bay, parsley, coriander seeds and tarragon help the preserving process. They are not there simply for flavour.

There are many methods of keeping foods, but I am going to limit myself here to those that can be made and conserved in a modern domestic kitchen, cupboard or fridge: jam, jelly, marmalade, cordial, curd, chutney, ketchup, pickle, ferment, pot, confit and rillette.

Different methodologies have evolved across the world, depending on climate and available ingredients. Fermentation involves immersion in brine, salt or wild yeasts. Pickling relies on acidic liquids such as vinegar, wine and citrus juice. Potting requires fat, whether butter, lard, duck fat, goose fat or extra-virgin olive oil. Jam, jelly and cordial require sugar. Chutney and sauces require both vinegar and sugar. I will dedicate a chapter of the book to each methodology and provide a master recipe for each protagonist, which, once learned, will empower the cook to create their own innovative preserves.

In the late twentieth century preserving was thought to be old hat, almost consigned to farmers’ wives, the Women’s Institute (WI) and people like me, and was on the brink of disappearing from the domestic kitchen. Today top chefs all over the world use preserving techniques to bring a new edge to the food they produce, creating innovative dishes and menus. Where daring chefs tread, others follow.

Uncover the secrets and science of preserving to learn the tricks of the trade and to find joy in simple pastimes that have been enjoyed by home cooks for decades or, in some cases, hundreds of years. Share your preserves as gifts, developing your skills, or take your new-found love to heart and even create a business. Remember that oak trees out of small acorns grow.

CHAPTER 1

Honey Without Bees

Preserving, as we know it today, was only made possible because of the introduction of cheap sugar imports from the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. Before that the principal sweetener was honey. When sugar first appeared in the West in the eleventh century it was a luxury item: the fruit conserves concocted with it were so rarefied that they were served on ornate teaspoons, as a luxurious taster to herald the close of a meal.

Pouring sugar into the preserving pan.

The joy of sugar cane was first discovered thousands of years ago by the indigenous peoples of New Guinea who chewed it. Its renown and cultivation was spread slowly by sea-faring traders to South-East Asia, India and China.

In the sixth century BC, when the Persian king Darius the Great invaded India, we are told that he found ‘a reed that gives honey without bees’. A thousand years later the Arab peoples who invaded Persia in AD 651 learned how to make sugar, and traders started to sell its wondrous crystals. Its reputation seeped slowly into Western awareness around the time of the Crusades. Mentions of sugar are hard to find in Chaucer but common in Shakespeare. Queen Elizabeth I’s teeth were blackened by over-consumption of this exotic white gold.

Joan of Arc was said to have taken marmelo, a preserve made with quince and sugar, and possibly a forerunner of modern marmalade, before going into battle as it gave her courage. Mary Queen of Scots kept marmelo close by as a cure-all remedy. Its mystique might have been preserved, but Spanish settlers first planted sugar canes in the New World from 1506 and the rest, as they say, is history. England founded its first American colony at Jamestown in 1607: sugar and slaves were both present in the colony by 1619.

The preserves cycle (clockwise from the top): crab apple jelly, bramble, apple and brandy jam, gooseberry jelly, fig and vanilla jam, apricot conserve, damson and star anise, Seville orange marmalade, strawberry and balsamic preserve, rhubarb and orange marmalade, elderberry, apple and Sambuca jelly.

Like tea, coffee, tobacco, chocolate and rum, sugar was found to have comforting effects, particularly in children. In this way it escaped moral censure until late in the twentieth century, when we began to worry about the impact on our increasingly sedentary lives of overeating food high in calories and low in nutrients.

Vast amounts of sugar were imported in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Consumption doubled between 1690 and 1740, but at this stage it was still a luxury item. Slavery made sugar cheaper, and the cheaper it became the more central it became to our diet. When tea and coffee, both naturally bitter, became popular in the eighteenth century, sugar became their natural partner.

Bread and jam for tea, the latest kitchen convenience for 20th-century factory workers.

As time went on a new source of sugar was discovered closer to home. In 1747 the German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf discovered that beet contained the same sugar as that produced from sugar cane. His apprentice Franz Karl Achard worked on selectively breeding sugar beets and by the beginning of the nineteenth century he opened the world’s first sugar beet factory.

By the end of the century cheap jam (one-third fruit pulp to two-thirds sugar) began to appear on the table of every working-class household. Women who worked in factories no longer spent their precious spare hours cooking, but like every generation that followed, embraced the latest kitchen convenience, in this case bread and jam.

There is a telling scene in the 2017 Christopher Nolan film Dunkirk telling the story of the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940. When the exhausted troops finally reach the safety of the boats to take them back to Blighty, they are greeted with a feast of bread and jam, which they devour with joy and relish. Sweet memories of home – no Big Macs or pizza back then!

The figures illustrating this revolution are astonishing: Britain’s annual per capita consumption of sugar was 4lb in 1704, 18lb in 1800 and 90lb in 1901 – a 22-fold increase to the point where Britons had the highest sugar intake in Europe. I am happy to report that this is no longer so.

‘DIGGING FOR VICTORY’, AN EPIC ENDEAVOUR

After World War II most rural (and not so rural) homes had access to a vegetable plot or allotment. This was a remnant of the famous wartime endeavour to ‘Dig for Victory’, introduced by the Ministry of Food to help eke out and improve the meagre rations imposed in 1940. Public gardens, parks and all available green spaces had been dug up ‘to grow our own’. Even Tower Green in London did not escape the vegetable gardener’s spade.

What was not eaten fresh from the ground was preserved to keep the people going through the winter. Rationing remained in place until 1954. During this time mastering the modern preserver’s skills was essential. The government increased the weekly sugar ration to encourage families to preserve what they had grown, and the weekly allowance would sometimes increase from 8oz (227g) to 1lb (454g) per week.

In 1939 it had appeared as though what had been a bumper harvest would go to waste. The Women’s Institute (WI), a nationwide community-based organization, came to the rescue. They successfully petitioned the government and saved 450 tons of fruit from going to waste in gardens, allotments and hedgerows by preserving it.

The following year their efforts escalated under the supervision of the Ministry of Food and they were granted £1,400 to buy sugar for jam. Rationing had been introduced and sugar was tightly controlled, records had to be kept and Preservation Centres were set up in villages where fruit was harvested. The epic endeavour was largely carried out by volunteers and significantly contributed to food supplies.

As a result 1,631 tons of preserves were made in more than 5,000 centres set up in any available space, such as kitchens and sheds, across the country, since the village halls, the WI’s usual domains, were occupied by other vital war work. Some 5,300 tons of fruit were preserved between 1940 and 1945.

The WI have retained their reputation for making preserves to this very day. Members are encouraged to make, show and sell their wares. Competition is as intense as in any round of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’, ‘The X Factor’ or ‘The Voice’.

The situation remained much the same through the 1950s. In the decades that followed the war, women embraced all the culinary innovations as they came along. Freshly baked bread could still be bought from the local baker, but once ‘the never go stale’, sliced white loaf from Mother’s Pride hit the nation, it found a permanent place in breadbins up and down the country.

The Robertson’s ‘golly on the jar’, so beloved by generations of children, was a regular visitor to the nation’s breakfast tables. How much this was due to the iconic badges that its young fans collected, or how much to fill the gaps left when money ran out for more nutritious food, I could not say, but the jars’ content was sugary sweet and loved by adults and children alike, perhaps making it an early signpost to the state of the nation’s waistline today.

Come the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, pantries would be stacked floor to ceiling with piles of jam jars, Kilners and bottles filled with colourful conserves. The pages of family cookbooks were filled with handwritten recipes: Mother Haywood’s apple chutney, Dolly Nash’s strawberry jam, Grandma’s Yorkshire pudding, Dora Phillips’s parsnip wine, Bren’s custard creams. These neighbourly doyennes of the kitchen passed on their wealth of culinary tricks and secrets long before the advent of the TV chef.

Cookbooks were handwritten collections of family recipes amassed from relations, friends and neighbours.

Sugar is at the heart of preserves as we think of them today. All have common ingredients – fruit, vegetables and sugar – and in most cases the traditional ratio is a kilo of fruit to a kilo of refined sugar for jam, less for chutney. Add more sugar and the preserves become crystalline, less sugar and it will not keep for so long, unless pasteurized or kept in the fridge or freezer.

A kilo of fruit to a kilo of sugar makes good jam and marmalade.

As the twentieth century rolled on, traditional kitchen crafts waned in popularity. The 1960s had brought all kinds of labour-saving devices, the contraceptive pill and convenience foods, giving women more freedom to think and to exist beyond the home and family. The Women’s Liberation movement blossomed and we threw away our bras, and with them our preserving pans. Life in 1975, according to the writer Shirley Conran, was too short to stuff a mushroom and we agreed.

The pendulum has swung slowly back until today we celebrate all things artisanal. The Covid lockdowns kicked off a veritable epidemic of banana bread baking and sough dough start-ups, while preservers’ cupboards are groaning under the weight of lockdown jars. However good the niche commercial equivalent, the contents of a jar of shop-bought preserves lacks that inner glow, that depth of feeling and, frankly, the flavour that comes with making your own.

What about consuming all this sugar, I hear you say? Preserves have their place in our diets with their intense flavours and jewel-like colours. Remember those exotic spoons of deliciousness served to close a meal long ago when ‘sweet’ was in its infancy. Preserves – when eaten by the teaspoonful on buttered toast, on bread and butter, in a jam sandwich, with meats, fish, cheeses, pies, confits and other savoury foods, in a cake or tart – enhance our eating and complement the myriad fresh ingredients we enjoy.

Variety and moderation is the key to good eating. If we ate only what we made ourselves, with the seasonal ingredients available, our diets would become healthier and more varied, our lives less sedentary, and food waste would disappear.

CHAPTER 2

Essential Stuff

Before getting down to the details of making your own preserves, it is worth taking some time to make a note of the simple techniques and precautions that apply to nearly all the following recipes and should become second nature as you gain more experience.

The preserving kitchen.

TOP TWENTY HINTS: A GUIDE TO PRESERVING

• Give yourself time: do not make preserves on a day when you need to watch the clock. Time and patience are two intangible essentials.

• Read recipes carefully ahead of time to check if there is any preparation to be done in advance such as marinating, macerating, soaking, dripping, brining or slow cooking.

• Check you have all the equipment and ingredients before you start. Have waxed paper discs and labels to hand. If using upcycled jars, you will also need cellophane discs and elastic bands or lids.

• Wash new and recycled jars and lids in warm soapy water, rinse and drain or put through the dish washer.

• Always use top-quality produce: quality in, quality out!

• Use organic citrus as it is not waxed.

• Use white granulated sugar for jam; all sugars are good for chutneys and ketchups.

• Weigh all ingredients before you start.

• Prepare, wash, chop, grate, juice and so on all produce.

• Invert washed jars on a baking tray to heat for 20 minutes in an oven set at 125°C to sterilize. Please note that all oven temperatures noted in this book are for fan-assisted ovens.

• Boil lids for 5 minutes and leave in the hot water until required. Drain on a clean cloth.

• Give your preserves your full attention. When you are starting out, do not try to do two things at the same time. If you must answer the phone or go to the door while your preserve is cooking, switch the heat off and pull the pan off the hot ring. Otherwise it is sure to burn or boil over.

• Soften the fruit and dissolve the sugar over low heat, stirring regularly.

• Increase the heat and boil the preserve for 5–10 minutes to set. Stir from time to time, otherwise you may burn the sugar and ruin the preserve.

• Test the set for jams and jelly. Take the pan off the heat and, using a chilled teaspoon from the freezer, pick up some of the preserve and put it back on the saucer in the fridge. Leave for 5 minutes to cool and then tip it up. If the preserve stays on the spoon, it is ready; if it runs off, it is not. If it isn’t ready, put the spoon and saucer back in the freezer and put the pan back on the heat and bring it back to the boil. Boil rapidly for 5 more minutes and test again (don’t forget to stir from time to time). If it is still not set, repeat the process yet again. Do not forget to switch the heat off under the pan while testing.

• Once ready, rest jams and chutneys for 10 minutes before potting to help the fruit and vegetables settle and disperse evenly.

• Pour your finished preserve into a large jug before potting, as this makes potting easier. Otherwise use a jam funnel. Take care not to overfill jars and stop at the base of the neck.

• Release trapped air bubbles in the preserve in the pots by tapping the open jar on a folded cloth. Stubborn bubbles may be released by sliding the point of a clean, sharp knife or skewer down the side of the jar. This may reduce the level of the preserve and you may need to top up the jar.

• Seal the jars, wipe with a warm damp cloth and leave to cool. Label the jars when cold with the preserve name and the date made.

• When you have finished, put the preserving pan in the sink and fill with cold water. Put all the sticky implements in it and leave for an hour or so. The sugar will dissolve and everything will come clean without any effort. Burnt pans may need a little biological powder and have to be soaked overnight, but always soak in cold water, not hot.

PRODUCE

Having an affinity with nature, the land and the seasons is not a prerequisite for a budding preserver. Neither is having the resources to grow your own. But it could be that the presence of these qualities, written somewhere in our DNA, may be a common denominator.

Talking to enthusiasts, I discover we share the belief that our cooking and preserving should be guided by the seasons. We are inspired by the wonderful kaleidoscope of produce that turns up through the growing year, unearthing a steady flow of fodder for our tables and preserving pans. We cannot resist the call of a rhubarb patch in spring, a fruit-laden tree or a basket of fragrant summer fruit in high summer or a hedge, heavy with berries in autumn.

Fragrant summer fruit in high summer.

Hedges can be heavy with fruit and berries in autumn.

We reach for the preserving pan at the merest sniff of a new crop to capture its flavour and colour, and to create delicious treats to enjoy in less fruitful times of year. You may be saying to yourself right now, ‘This isn’t me!’ But the very fact you are reading these pages could be the first step to a lifelong addiction. Homemade preserves really do taste best and provide untold culinary pleasures.

When it comes to produce, you can choose home-grown, organic, commercially grown, from the local greengrocer, farm shop or supermarket. All that matters is that it is good quality, fresh and seasonal. Nature has a happy knack of providing the nutrients, vitamins and minerals when we most need them.

When it comes to citrus and other Mediterranean and tropical fruit and veg, however, we mostly depend on imports, but they too have their seasons. For example, the Seville, the queen of marmalade oranges, is only available for a short time in winter, triggering a frenzy of marmalade making among the cognoscenti.

It is a fallacy that preserving is a good way to use up inferior or damaged produce. The best fruit for preserving is a touch underripe. Overripe fruit makes watery, tasteless jam – use them to make purees and freeze them.

One thing to remember if you grow your own, make sure you pick your fruit when the weather is fine. Wet produce will not make good preserves and will soon go mouldy.

THE PRESERVER’S GUIDE TO THE SEASONS

The preserver’s year starts with the arrival of Seville oranges to make marmalade and draws to a close at Christmas with cranberry relish for the turkey and mincemeat for pies. A full agenda of conserving events is jammed in between, triggered by the arrival of the steady flow of fruit and vegetables as they meander in and out of season.

In reality we are no longer constrained by the seasons. What is not grown at home is imported. Summer fruits are readily available summer, autumn, winter and spring, but they are at their finest when they are grown locally, harvested when ripe and delivered to shops the same day. In the depths of winter, when our own produce is beginning to be in short supply, our preserving pans are kept busy with the import of traditional bumper crops of tangy citrus and luscious tropical fruits. Therefore, these too, play a part in our preserving year.

At the start of the growing year, the ground is ploughed and planted in readiness for a bountiful harvest to come.

Pear and apple orchards burgeon with blossom in spring.

Strawberry plants burst into flower in early summer.

Work in the kitchen-garden is never done.

SEASONALITY CHART

Winter

Fruit

clementine

cranberry

dried fruit

grapefruit

lemon

lime

mandarin

orange

pomegranate

tangerine

Vegetables

Brussels sprout

celeriac

celery

ginger root

Jerusalem artichoke

leek

onion

parsnip

potato

red cabbage

swede

winter cabbage

Herbs

bay

horseradish

rosemary

sage

thyme

Fish and meat

crab

duck

goose

grouse

guinea fowl

hare

lobster

mallard

partridge

pheasant

smoked haddock

turkey

venison

Spring

Fruit

banana

kiwi

mango

passion fruit

pawpaw

pineapple

rhubarb

Vegetables

asparagus

broad bean

broccoli

cauliflower

cavolo nero

elderflower

green walnut

leek

lettuce

nettles

new potato

purple sprouting

radish

spring onion

turnip

Herbs

bay

elderflower

fennel

mint

rosemary

sage

thyme

wild garlic

Fish and meat

crab

crayfish

lamb

langoustine

lobster

mackerel

prawn

salmon

shrimp

smoked haddock

trout

wood pigeon

Summer

Fruit

apricot

blackberry

blueberry

cherry

currants

gooseberry

greengage

loganberry

mulberry

nectarine

peach

plum

raspberry

sloe

strawberry

tayberry

Vegetables

beetroot

broad bean

broccoli

cabbage

calabrese

capsicum

carrot

cauliflower

courgette

cucumber

fennel

French bean

garlic

lettuce

onion

pea

potato

rocket

runner bean

samphire

shallot

spinach

spring onion

squash

sweetcorn

tomato

turnip

Herbs

basil

capers

edible flowers

fennel fronds

mint

nasturtium

sweet cicely

tarragon

Fish and meat

beef

crab

crayfish

lamb

langoustine

mackerel

prawn

rabbit

shrimp

trout

venison

wild salmon

wood pigeon

Autumn

Fruit

apple

crab apple

damson

fig

pear

plum

quince

Vegetables

aubergine

beetroot

broccoli

Brussels sprout

cabbage

calabrese

capsicum

carrot

cauliflower

celeriac

celery

chicory

endive

French bean

kale

leek

marrow

onion

parsnip

potato

pumpkin

radicchio

radish

rocket

spinach

squash

swede

tomato

watercress

Herbs

lavender

rosemary

sage

thyme

Fish and meat

beef

crab

crayfish

duck

goose

grouse

guinea fowl

hare

lamb

lobster

mackerel

mallard

partridge

rabbit

turkey

venison

EQUIPMENT

To start you will need a large pan of sorts, weighing scales, chopping board and knife, a wooden spoon, some upcycled jars and lids and a pack of jam pot covers (wax discs, cellophane discs, labels, and elastic bands). The time to buy a few specialist items is when you get into your stride.

Preserving pan

A preserving, jam or maslin pan, is a large, thick, flat-based pan. It is specially designed for making preserves and is therefore the perfect pan for the job. Its thick base should allow for good distribution of heat. One made of stainless steel is suited to all types of hobs (including an Aga). It should hold between 8 and 12 litres (2 gallons), have metric and imperial guide markings inside and incorporate a pouring lip. Its weight, anything between 1 and 4kg, is something else to be considered when choosing.

Preserving pan, also known as a maslin pan.

The sides of the preserving pan slope gently outwards to a wider top, allowing for better evaporation of liquids, so reducing the time it takes to cook the preserves. The pan should have a well-riveted, long and loose carry handle and a small, fixed steadying handle.

Copper preserving pans are considered a luxury alternative because of their amazing heat conductivity, which allows for longer cooking times without burning. There are drawbacks, however, since copper reacts with certain acidic fruit, and you must learn how to handle this. A recent drawback is that copper is not compatible with induction hobs.

I use my mother’s old aluminium pan, which I love, even though I know aluminium now gets a bad press. I also have a smaller, more modern one in stainless steel. An aluminium pan is not compatible with induction, but I have both a gas and an induction hob for this very reason. Aluminium has good conductivity and makes exceptionally good preserves.

Some questions to ask when choosing your pan

• Does it have markings on the inside?

• Does it retain heat easily?

• Does it have a pouring lip?

• Does it have a handle for lifting?

• Is the base of the pan flat and is it specially constructed for the job?

• Is there even heat distribution?

• How heavy is the pan?

Jelly bag

If you are making jelly (a clear preserve without bits; see Chapter 3), you will need to strain the cooked fruit through a jelly bag. This can simply be a conical fabric bag hung from an S hook, on a cupboard door handle or an upturned chair or stool.

A jelly bag and S hook can be suspended anywhere.

Free-standing jelly bag set.

Jelly bags often come complete with a table-top stand. Some of the bags and stand-sets on the market are very flimsy and not up to the job, so when buying online, please do not choose the cheapest option.

Jam thermometer

Thermometers are unreliable. The problem is not actually with the thermometer itself but with the acidity of the preserve. Setting point occurs at around 104°C, but it varies according to the acidity of the fruit. If you prefer the security of a temperature gauge, then by all means use one, but be warned you still need to learn the visual signs too (seeChapter 3).

Muslin

Muslin is sold in kitchen shops along with all the other paraphernalia required for preserving. Cut squares can be used for tying up herbs and spices to add to a preserve when infuser bags are not available. A colander lined with muslin is useful for straining cordials and other drinks. Muslin can also be tied over the mouth of jars and crocks for fermenting and other processes.

A colander lined with a double layer of muslin for straining cordials.

Infuser bags

You can buy tiny ready-made, disposable (paper) or reusable (cotton fabric) drawstring bags for infusing herbs and spices, and for boiling citrus pips to extract pectin. Cut a length of string to tie the bag to the pan handle.

Infusion bags for adding whole spices and dried herbs.

Jars, bottles and lids

Your local kitchen shop can supply jars and lids. There are also websites that resemble an Aladdin’s cave of jars, but first ask yourself how many perfectly good jars do you regularly throw away? It takes no time at all to accumulate a decent collection of used jars that are perfect for domestic use. If you want to make a business out of making preserves, then you will need to buy jars and lids. Some pretty jars may also be worth buying if you fancy making preserves as presents, but otherwise upcycling jars is my advice and the sustainable way to go.

Upcycled jam jars, lids, bottles, tops, Kilners and seals.

The stumbling block to upcycling old jars is the removal of old labels, but I have found that the colourful ‘Scrubby’ cleaning cloths by Kilo can wipe the most stubborn label off a jar in next to no time. It would help if other preserve and label manufacturers followed the ‘Bonne Maman’ brand and used water-soluble glues. When you wash a Bonne Maman preserve jar in warm soapy water or in the dishwasher the label floats off, whereas other manufacturers’ labels need serious scrubbing and scraping to remove them.

Since upcycled lids tend to become damaged over time, I put a cellophane disc under the lid as this helps fill any cracks and stops bacteria entering the jar. Alternatively, replace lids or seal the jars with a damp cellophane disc secured with an elastic band. These are available in packs of jam pot cover kits.

If you are buying jars, I suggest choosing jars from 250 to 350ml for jams and jellies, 400ml for chutneys, and 500ml to 1 litre for pickles. For cordials use bottles from 250 to 750ml capacity.

Potting funnel

It is not essential to use a potting funnel, which are available in all good kitchen shops. The hot runny preserve can be decanted into a large jug and then poured directly into the jars. When using a funnel it is easy to overfill jars, as it is difficult to see the level under the funnel.

Potting funnel.

Large heat-resistant jug

Use a 1.5-litre sized jug for potting. Pour all runny preserves into the jug from the preserving pan over the kitchen sink. This makes filling jars and bottles very much easier and quicker.

Skimmer

A skimmer is a long-handled metal utensil with a flat round ‘spoon’ punctuated with holes. It is essential for skimming off sugar-scum from the surface of your preserves before potting (see individual recipes).

A much-used skimmer.

Mouli-légumes

A mouli-légumes (sometimes known as a moulin légume) is unique as it sieves and purees at the same time and is indispensable for making ketchups, vegetable sauces, fruit purees and passatas. No Italian or French household is without one, but beyond these countries you are more likely to find the miniature version for preparing baby food. Make sure you buy the full-size version, with a diameter of 24cm, as a small one is not up to the job we need it for.

Full-sized mouli-légumes for making purees and sauces.

Jam pot cover kits

Kitchen shops sell little cellophane packets filled with waxed discs to seal the surface of the preserve, cellophane heat-sealing covers, rubber bands to seal them and labels. Some specialist shops sell individual labels and wax discs if you do not need elastic bands and cellophane circles.

Jam pot cover kits containing wax paper discs, cellophane circles, elastic bands and labels.

Labels

Write the name of the preserve and the date made on the label. It is tempting to use large, decorated labels, but to date the glues used are not water soluble and make removing them difficult. I use the tiny white labels supplied in the jam pot cover kits or small oval labels, both of which can be stuck to the lids or jars.

Roll of decorative labels.

General equipment

Other than the specialist items already mentioned, you may need a wooden spoon, a zester and grater, a potato peeler, a potato masher for crushing fruit as it cooks down, a citrus squeezer, a chopping board, a couple of decent sharp knives (one large, one small), a silicone spatula, colander, sieve, measuring jug and weighing scales.

STERILIZATION

Wash all equipment thoroughly. Only jars and lids need to be sterilized.

This can be achieved simply by putting jars in the dishwasher, but it is not always convenient or environmentally sound to run a dishwasher for a few jars.

Wash the jars in warm soapy water, rinse and invert on a baking tray in a pre-heated oven set at 125°C for 20 minutes before potting. Jars must be hot ready for potting in order to contain the hot preserves without cracking.

Lids and rubber seals/gaskets should be immersed in simmering water for 5 minutes.

PASTEURIZATION OR CANNING (USA)

Pasteurization prevents certain preserves being spoiled by any remaining yeast or unwanted microbes. While methods may vary, there are three essential steps to pasteurization: heating, holding and cooling.

In the USA it is recommended that all preserves are pasteurized, but this is not required in Europe. Jam, jelly, marmalade, chutney, relishes, pickles, potted fayre and ferments are not ordinarily pasteurized as their sugar/vinegar/salt/fat content and cooking method is sufficient to preserve the contents of the jars.

Pasteurization is recommended, however, for certain Italian preserves using olive oil as a medium.

You will need

• Large deep saucepan or boiler.

• Squat, heat-resistant glass jars, storage jars and bottles are best as they need to be immersed upright in the pasteurization pan.

• Three or four clean, thick cloths.

Method 1

• Pour the cordials or ketchups into suitably sized heatresistant bottles or jars. Put on the caps, but do not close tightly.

• Place a thick folded cloth in the bottom of the pan.

• Put the bottles or jars in the pan upright and wind two or three clean tea towels between the jars. Add enough cold water to come just past the level of the liquid inside the bottles.

• Switch on the heat and bring the water up to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

• Take out the bottles, seal tightly and leave to cool on their sides to ensure the inside of the caps are sterile.

When pasteurizing preserves, wrap tea towels between the jars.

Method 2

• Put a folded cloth in the bottom of the pan. Place the jars in the middle and fill the space around them with the other folded cloths. Immerse in cold water, bring to the boil, and then simmer for 20 minutes. Leave the jars in the water until cold, then rinse and dry.

• Leave to cool and store in the dark.