Preserves: A beginner’s guide to making jams and jellies, chutneys and pickles, sauces and ketchups, syrups and alcoholic sips

Large nylon sieve. Do not use metal if you can help it, for it may react against some vegetables and fruit to leave a taste of ‘bad pennies’.

A mallet or blunt instrument for cracking kernels, etc.

Pestle and mortar or equivalent for pounding and grinding. If you decide to use the end of a wooden rolling pin in a basin, take care not to use too much force-I have knocked the bottom out of more basins than I care to remember.

Jam funnel and a narrow sauce funnel. Although neither of these is essential, they save waste and prevent the odd accident.

A juice extractor. To extract pure juice the best piece of equipment is a stand-up metal model with a handle to pull down and squeeze the juice from any citrus fruit without taking peel or pith. It also ensures the maximum amount of juice.

Measuring spoons.

Wooden board, clean cloths and oven glove.

Jam thermometer, which is very handy as it cuts out guesswork.

PRESERVING PANS

You can have a very tense time trying to identify what may have gone wrong with the preserve that you have just made. It may look and taste insipid and murky or refuse to set and quite frequently the answer may lie in the pan in which you cooked it.

A few pointers before you start will save you time and trouble:

A preserving pan should be large enough to take all the ingredients with plenty of room for the contents to rise up without boiling over. The wider the pan, the more quickly the liquid evaporates, hence the more rapid the set.

Try to use a preserving pan with two-handed grips, not long handles. In this way you will avoid catching the handle whilst working and you will be able to get a far firmer grip on a full, heavy pan. A side-to-side handle across the pan can be dangerous if it catches on its hooks and tips its contents over you and the floor. Remember that unless handles are absolutely well insulated, always wear kitchen gloves when holding pans.

Heavy-based and preferably copper-clad pans allow a slow and even distribution of heat, which prevents burning when bringing to the boil.

Do not leave preserves, chutneys, etc. to stand overnight in the preserving pan as this may taint the end product. Pans should be kept scrupulously clean, bright and shiny and if they have been kept in a cupboard, rinse them well before starting.

Stainless-steel pans are the most satisfactory in every way

Enamel pans are passable, but must be free from chips and scratches. However, the contents do tend to burn more easily.

Cast-iron pans with a good enamel finish and flameproof casseroles may be suitable, but are never very large.

Copper pans are glorious to look at, but they have several disadvantages. Red fruit will lose its colour when cooked in copper, although green fruit such as gooseberries will stay bright and clear whilst blackcurrants will lose much of their high vitamin C content and also refuse to set. Never cook recipes containing vinegar, for example chutney or pickles, in a copper pan as the vinegar reacts adversely with it and can form a toxic substance. Pickled gherkins, for instance, will look amazingly bright green and professional – they will also be lethal. Fruit and vegetables with high oxalic acid content, such as rhubarb, sorrel and spinach, should not be cooked in copper.

Aluminium pans. The reasons against using copper pans also apply to aluminium.

Iron and brass pans should never be used.

A pressure cooker is both very good for cooking and for sterilising.

ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT

None of the following are essential, but they will certainly make your life easier:

A food processor with a slicing and shredding attachment. There are many excellent food processors on the market, but you don’t have to go for the top end of the range, you simply need an uncomplicated piece of equipment with variable speeds and an attachment that takes the hard work out of fruit and vegetable preparation.

A mincer or mincing machine.

A liquidiser is very handy. Most liquidised pulps have to be sieved as well, but it does cut out the hard labour. A coffee grinder also cuts the hard work out of grinding spices.

A microwave oven. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for times and quantities as each model varies. The amount of preserve made each time will be limited.

A slow cooker should be used in the following manner: never fill beyond the manufacturer’s advice; make sure that the mixture is hot when it is put into the cooker; and use medium heat. When the fruit, etc. is cooked, turn it out into a pan before adding the sugar and continuing the recipe. Using a slow cooker is useful for softening the peel of citrus fruit and other fruit and vegetables and means that they can be left to cook gently all day without you having to stand over them. A saving in both time and fuel.

A pressure cooker. This is a useful addition to the home preservers kitchen and instructions for their use can be found under Marmalade (#litres_trial_promo).

A freezer.

JARS, CONTAINERS AND LIDS

Clean, dry, sterilised jars and bottles (#ulink_5cf15463-b0e0-54d2-9987-3f02775482ba) are suitable for the majority of preserves. Domestic jars, ie jam jars, honey pots, sauce bottles, etc. are accustomed to some heat, but you must make sure that you thoroughly wash and sterilise the jar by heating first. Always use glass bottles with a cork or plastic top to avoid leaving a taint on the finished product, and use a narrow funnel for pouring.

A word about jar sizes. When you come to fill your jam jars you will realise that the British 1lb/450g jar has evolved into a 13oz/375g size. It is difficult to judge exactly how many jars you will need since much depends on the type of fruit or vegetables used and the cooking time. Big, bulky fruit with a high pectin content, like apples, will fill more jars than a shrinking fruit with little pectin content, such as strawberries. Jam containing commercial pectin will give you jam for your money. Chutney and pickles vary considerably depending on the amount of liquid used and the thickness required. It is always wiser to use very small jars or pots (baby food jars are excellent) for more unusual preserves such as herb jellies, which may not be eaten very quickly and may deteriorate once opened. Therefore, you may take it that an ordinary jam jar referred to is the conventional 375g, a medium jar is 175g and a small jar is approximately 50–75g. Large jars, generally speaking, hold 900g.

Jars can be sealed with wax discs and paper or small rounds of pretty material or paper doilies tied down with string, which is a very attractive option for giving as presents. Screw-top lids can be used to seal any preserve that does not contain vinegar as vinegar corrodes metal and not only makes a nasty mess, but renders the contents unobtainable. However, many jar and bottle caps are now plastic lined.

Strictly speaking, corks should not be used in herb vinegars as they tend to draw out flavour, although many corks are now made from plastic. If in doubt, make a tight twist of greaseproof paper around the bottom of the cork. Bottle corks may be obtained from ironmongers. Make sure that they are clean and dry before using.

When potting with Kilner or preserving jars, always use new bands and the lids and screw or clip seals provided with the jars. An old-fashioned and very competent way of sealing preserves is to pour a thin layer of paraffin wax over the contents, but this has its disadvantages: the preserve must be really thick and well set and besides, it is a very fiddly business.

Some of the recipes for pickles refer to the use of earthenware jars. Although earthenware jars are the traditional containers for pickled fruits and fruits in alcohol, certain facts must be established. First, do make sure that the container is fully glazed and non-porous, otherwise your lovely juice will disappear. Secondly, if it is glazed, it must not be a lead glaze. Lead reacts against vinegar, alcohol and certain fruit with a high acid content to become potentially lethal. Those attractive old-fashioned earthenware containers picked up at car-boot sales and second-hand shops may be lead glazed for in Britain and on the Continent this was predominantly used in the past. Scandinavian countries favoured a borax or salt glaze and these are the ones most frequently used nowadays. A rough guide is in the appearance: borax and salt glazes are usually of a speckled grey stone. Nowadays those highly decorative rumtopf and pickle jars, which have been made specifically for those purposes, one would assume to be safe, but if you are not sure, do not use them.

Clean and polish your containers after you have filled them, label them clearly with the contents and date and store them in a cool dry place away from bright lights, damp, steam and well off concrete floors. Now you can sit back, quite smugly, and enjoy the sight of rows of glowing, glistening and glorious preserves, which are the fruits of your imagination, hard work and labour.

TO STERILISE GLASS BOTTLES OR JARS BEFORE FILLING

Preheat the oven to 120°C/gas mark ½. Wash the bottles or jars and lids in very hot soapy water, rinse and then place in a roasting tray. Pour boiling water into the jars and bottles and over the lids. Discard the water and then place the tray in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. The bottles or jars and lids are then ready to use.

If you put a cold glass jar straight into a hot oven or boiling water it will crack. The same applies to transferring hot jars full of hot preserve on to a cold surface, so lay a wooden board or thick cloth where you intend to place the jars. Decorative glass jars are a different thing and should be carefully tested for their strength before filling with a hot preserve.

TO STERILISE FILLED JARS

This process is used for the final stages of all the sauce, purée and paste recipes. The jars to use for preserves that need sterilising after potting are the four-piece preserving jars with rubber bands, glass lids, screw or clip tops. Before you start cooking your fruit take your clean, dry jars and pop them into a cool oven and bring the heat up to 140°C/gas mark 1. Put the tops of the jars to boil for 10 minutes, bringing the heat up from cold. Just before they are done, drop the rubber bands in as well.

Pour the boiling preserve into the jars. Put on the rubber bands and the tops. Fasten the tops of the jars with screw lids or clips. When using screw lids, give a bare half turn back again to allow for the expansion of the jars. Put a wire rack or false bottom in a preserving pan. Stand the jars in the receptacle, making sure that they do not touch and fill the container with very hot water. Bring to the boil and boil for 5–8 minutes or however long is specified in the recipe. Remove the jars and place on a wooden board or thick cloth. Tighten the screw tops immediately.

Test after 24 hours by removing the clip or screw band – you should be able to lift the jar by the glass tops. If the jar does not fall off, then the seal is complete. If it does fall off, then you will either have to scrape the contents from the floor or eat it within the next few days. This principal is the same as that for bottling fruit and vegetables. Asparagus pans, tall and narrow, are excellent for sterilising bottles.

STORING PRESERVES

As the reason for making preserves is in order to put produce by for another day, it would be expected that jams, preserves, chutneys, sauces and pickles, etc. should last for at least 6 months if they have been made and potted correctly, and most probably longer. Use within a year to be absolutely certain.

Most preserves, unless specifically stated otherwise, can be eaten as soon as they are cooled – usually the next day.

Some preserves, like lemon curd which has eggs and butter in it, are better kept in the fridge once opened.