These plums are not exactly the same variety as the ones we had on the tree in our own back yard, but they are similar. Ours ripened a few weeks ago and were immediately devoured by birds. The neighbors' plums weren't really quite ripe yet, but I picked some late last week anyway. They aren't a "freestone" variety, so I figured I had two options: either bake them in a clafoutis, pits and all, or make jam or jelly with them.
I ended up making jelly, which is something I had planned to make with our own plums before the birds stole them all. It turned out to be pretty easy. I just rinsed the plums, put them in pot, covered them with water, and simmered them until they burst and released their juice. I crushed them a little with a potato masher as they cooked. They simmered on low heat for 30 to 45 minutes.
Then I dumped the unpitted plums into a colander lined with a kitchen towel, letting the juice drip into a bowl for an hour or more. I ended up with a good liter of juice. I went down to get a kilogram bag of sugar out of the cellar, and discovered that I had a bag of sucre spécial gelées — sugar that has pectin mixed with it. So I followed the instructions on the bag: dissolve one kilo of sugar into one kilo of fruit juice. Bring that mixture to a boil and let it boil for five minutes or more. It worked! I ended up with five jars of thick jelly.
Not only did I pick little red plums at the neighbors', but I also picked about a kilo of the slightly larger yellow plums that are called mirabelles. Now I have to figure out what to do with them. They're sweeter than the red plums. Maybe I'll make preserves, but I'm letting the mirabelles ripen a little more before I do that.
If I recall correctly, the jam you made several years ago with these little plums was absolutely delicious. I have never heard of plum jelly, but why not. This way you don't have to pit each one of them : labor intensive and time consuming!
ReplyDeleteI've read about plum jelly on web sites. In the past, I have cooked the plums, let the mass of pulp and pits cool down, and then gone through it with my hands and fingers to remove all the pits. That took forever. This way is much better. The mirabelles are freestone plums, it takes time but it's not hard to remove the pits. I think I'll make confiture with those, or at least some of them. There are more on the tree across the road.
DeletePeanut butter and jelly sandwiches are called for!
ReplyDeleteWe have tiny plums this year. Actually, the ones that are still there are too high up to get to. I didn't bother trying to take the pits out before making my jam and tried sorting out the pits after cooking the plums+sugar. That was a mess, but I do have jam, not jelly. Next time, I think the jelly might be a better choice. Also, I used plain sugar for my jam and although it seemed to have cooked down to jam consistency, it looks more liquid in the jars. We'll see about that when I open one.
I was reading about getting jelly to actually gel. It seems that increasing the acidity of the fruit or juice by adding some lemon juice really helps the gelling process. I had always thought that the lemon juice was just for flavor. But no... The red plums were pretty sour, so they were fairly acidic, and I didn't add lemon juice. With the sucre spécial gelées I got a good result. I also have some agar agar, and I'm soon going to try to make some more jelly (blueberry or strawberry, for example) and using the agar agar as a thickener. We'll see. As for peanut butter, I found some good stuff, both crunchy and smooth, at LIDL. recently. I need to go back and get some more. It's too bad the closest LIDLs to us are about a 40 minute drive.
DeleteOh, that’s what mirabelles are!? Cool to know. I have a bottle of a light mirabelle flavor liqueur, and I couldn’t really tell what the fruit was.
ReplyDeleteYour jelly looks scrumptious.
Is that a sweet, opaque liqueur or a clear white eau de vie? I enjoy the clear stuff (mirabelle brandy) but I'm not sure I know the liqueur (but would probably like). The jelly is delicious. I had some with butter on toasted baguette for breakfast, and some more as flavoring and sweetening in a bowl of plain yogurt as dessert a few minutes ago.
DeleteI love the caramel sweetness of mirabelles - it's like eating candies. It seems impossible to get either the fruit or the tree here in British Columbia and I haven't found the reason. Perhaps French export restrictions due to a protected heirloom status, or import restrictions to prevent the spread of a pox, or perhaps simply the difficulty in propagating. Google is unclear. We can occasionally find the Bonne Maman jam, but otherwise it's tempting to plan French holidays around mirabelle time! Jocelyn
ReplyDeleteTry this site (Raintree Nursery).
DeleteMirabelles are my very favorites!
ReplyDeleteRemember those yellow plums on the trees out on the edge of the vineyard. They are really good this year too. Two or three years ago, a couple who said they lived in Brittany came and started mowing and trimming the land that little orchard grows on. They told us we could take any fruit from there that we wanted. The woman said her mother, who lived between here and Saint-Aignan, owned the land but had passed away. Well, this year they haven't shown up and the grass and weeds are waist-high under the trees again. I wonder what has happened to them, and I don't know their names so can't contact them. I've picked a few plums but not very many.
DeleteWell thank you, you make it seem easy! Since I have nowhere to plant a tree I will not inquire, but I wonder if they would ship to Canada. There is definitely a restriction of some kind and I have read each of the above in various places. Import of the fruit itself is difficult due to it's short shelf life too.
ReplyDeleteJocelyn