13 August 2014

Standin' and stirrin'

I was surprised how fast and easy it was to  make preserves this way. In the morning, I poured the fruit and juice, which had spent the night in the pantry after being brought to a bare boil the day before, into a fine-holed colander and collected the liquid in a pot. Here's what the fruit looked like. You could certainly enjoy eating it just like this:


I set the pot on high heat to boil the liquid. I got the instant-read thermometer out. By the time the syrup came to a boil, it was already up over 100ºC. In a minute or two, the thermometer read as high as 106. The goal was to get it up to 105, which is 221ºF, well above the boiling point of water. So I put the reserved plums into the pot with the syrup.


It didn't take more than 3 or 4 minutes for the mixture to get back up to 105ºC again. It was time to spoon the confiture into sterilized jars and seal them with sterilized lids. I ended up with four jars of preserves plus a little extra for the refrigerator. I'll have to taste it this morning.


The preserves look really good in the jars. You can see the pieces of plum suspended in their own jelly. You'll notice that I put the preserves up in Bonne Maman "jelly" jars, but this is not a product I bought at the supermarket! C'est moi qui l'ai fait.

P.S. It's really raining this morning and our area is under a weather warning for heavy rain and flooding. We live fairly high up on a hill, and our roof isn't leaking, so I think we'll ride it out. Officially, the warning covers two departments, the Indre et the Cher, and we live about 5 miles from the border of the Indre. I'm sure the Cher River, which flows down at the bottom of our road, is going to get pretty full of water coming from upstream. This is already an August for the record books, I'm afraid.

12 comments:

  1. It's chucking it down here this morning, as we await the lady that's coming to do our diagnostics for the house. I hope she's wearing her galoshes.
    The preserve looks wonderful. I've never made it using the standing overnight method myself, so I will bookmark the recipe.....for the day when I have some plum trees of my own.

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  2. Ken & Jean....
    the electronic gauge couldn't cope... it is currently reading 21.9 Millipedes
    I've looked at the physical, analogue gauge and we've had 31, so far!!
    The rain satellite is showing a huge swirl of light and dark blue right across the bottom and middle of France....
    but fortunately no red** bits in there!!

    Ken,
    Glad that the gutter's holding out...
    I think you could reasonably...
    nay, safely, say your roofer knows his onions!

    Those plums look so good...
    we've got chopped cukes, onions and red pepper...
    the last not ours tho'....
    draining on the counter...
    ready for a batch of sweet cucumber pickle.

    Plums tho' are done and dusted...
    we ate most!

    But the damsons [quetsches] are ripening....
    and we are collecting them slowly...
    via the freezer...
    for damson jam!!


    [**red = more than 100 Millipedes per hour rain rate]
    Now 24 and 33 millipedes!

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    Replies
    1. I don't know how you are supposed to eat it, but many if not most French boulangers strive to make bread that is alvéolé like that. It's the highest quality, they say, and the irregular holes in the crumb indicate that a perfect "rise" has taken place. On this site I read:

      Un pain bien levé, à la mie couleur crème, avec des alvéoles irrégulières, c'est le signe d'une bonne fermentation. Les pains industriels ont des petites alvéoles bien régulières. Un bon pain artisanal aura à la fois des grosses et des petites alvéoles, distribuées de façon aléatoire dans la pâte.

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    2. Thanks Ken...
      it is now obvious to me that they just can't be bothered to "knock it back" before the second rise ;-} ....
      laziness, or an excuse for it, doesn't make good bread in my book.
      How on earth can one make a peanut butter and redcurrant jelly sandwich like that!!
      Or a mushy banana one...
      all the goodness ends up all over your hands, the plate and the breadboard!!

      Ha well! We live in France...
      I'll just have to buy my sandwiching bread from "bad" bakers 8-(...

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    3. Tim, you are starting to sound a little like an American I know who won't eat eggs in France because, he says, eggs are supposed to be white, not brown! How many French people do you think eat peanut butter and jelly or banana sandwiches. The classic French sandwich is a piece of buttered baguette with a slice of ham on it.

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    4. Ken, it's the weather....
      makes me think of "comfort" food...
      as opposed to your blog today...
      of wonderful fishy tacos....
      that just made me want to eat!!

      And Brown eggs have more flavour than White....
      provided that you also eat the shell!!

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  3. I just dumped 23 mm out of our rain gauge. That means we've had 78 mm, or over 3 inches, since August 1. And it is still raining hard.

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  4. Sorry to hear about all of this continual heavy rain :(

    Ken, I've never made preserves, but I've read several of your posts over the years about it. Do you add some kind of thickening agent? or is there a special sugar you use that has extra pectin in it, or something like that? Or do you rely just on the reducing for thickness?

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  5. Bonjour Ken,

    Le fournisseur de ces bocaux libellés Bonne Maman sera content et heureux d'en savourer du fait maison :-)
    We saw the weather forecast last night and all those huge waves dans Morbihan and it looks like they won't have much sun in the south also. It must not be fun for those who are en vacances this month

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  6. You can buy Le Parfait lids at the Brico that fit Bon Maman jars. They say "Fait Maison) in little letters on the side and "Home Made" in big letters on the top. Of course you could cover a jar of Bon Maman jam in this way, but we know this is the real stuff. It looks fabulous! Pauline

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