Unfortunately, the season of fragrant melons is not long, and I would like to preserve the taste and aroma for a long time, so that even on harsh winter days you can treat yourself to a drop of summer.
Thanks to simple step-by-step recipes, you can taste this favorite product even six months after the purchase, having prepared, for example, melon jam.
Melon jam - general principles
Hostesses often for the preparation of jams, preserves and other preservation use, so to speak, substandard. It is impossible to cook really tasty jam of their spoiled product, you need to approach the choice of melon with special care. The fruit must be ripe, not unripe, not overripe.
The selected melon is thoroughly washed with water, peeled, eliminating seeds and peel. The prepared pulp is cut into pieces of arbitrary shape. Neither size nor appearance is important here, because after cooking the melon mass will need to be ground in any case.
Often, melon is prepared with the addition of other fruits, for example, with oranges, lemon, apples. If citrus fruits are used, they are recommended to be thoroughly washed, dipped in boiling water for a few minutes in order to save the zest from bitterness. Bones when grinding must be removed and discarded. Apples acquire not too sweet varieties, preferring fruits with sourness. They are also washed and cleaned, then cut.
In addition to fruit, ground nuts, honey, and crushed sesame seeds can be added to the melon jam. For aroma, cinnamon or vanillin is optional.
Prepare the jam exclusively in stainless steel utensils or in a slow cooker, and so that nothing is burnt, the jam is stirred from time to time.
Ready-made jam is laid out hot in a prepared thoroughly washed and dried container. If you make jam non-durable storage, it does not roll up, but simply cover. Jam for the winter must be poured into sterilized jars, rolling up sterilized lids. It is easiest to clean the jars with soda diluted in water or in a soap solution using laundry soap. To sterilize containers you can use a steam bath, an oven or a microwave. The lids are sterilized, letting go for a couple of minutes in a saucepan with boiling water.
1. Melon jam for the winter
Ingredients:
• one big melon;
• one pack of vanilla;
• citric acid - ten grams;
• 1.4 kilograms of sugar;
• purified water - 500 ml.
Cooking Method:
1. Take one large ripe melon, carefully wash it under running water, cut it into two halves, remove the seeds, peel, and cut the flesh into medium cubes. The melon the melon, the tastier and more aromatic the jam will be.
2. Put the sliced melon in a deep bowl, set aside for some time.
3. Boil the sugar syrup: pour 500 ml of filtered water into a metal pan, add four tablespoons of sugar, put on a high heat, bring to a boil. As soon as the first bubbles appear, reduce the heat to the lowest and boil until the sugar is completely dissolved.
4. Pour the hot sugar syrup into the bowl with the chopped melon and leave the melon in the syrup for twenty minutes.
5. After the allotted time, carefully cut the melon with the syrup into a large metal pan, put it on the stove, set a moderate flame, simmer the jam, stirring occasionally for about ten minutes.
6. Add the remaining sugar, stir, cook until melon is completely softened and the mass thickens.
7. Fifteen minutes before the end of cooking, pour in citric acid and vanillin.
8. While the jam is being prepared, prepare the jars: rinse them thoroughly with soda solution, rinse, steep on a steam bath and put on a clean towel so that water droplets are drained.
9. Pour the cooked melon jam into hot prepared jars and roll up tightly with a metal lid. Turn the jars of melon jam upside down and wrap in a warm blanket, leave on for the whole night. 10. Put cooled jars of jam in a dark, cool place, for example, in a cupboard or cellar.
2. Melon jam with lemon and cinnamon
Ingredients:
• two large melons;
• one large lemon;
• sugar - one kilogram;
• Fresh cinnamon - one stick.
Cooking Method:
1. Wash two large ripe melons, cut, remove seeds, peel and cut into cubes of arbitrary shape of medium size, transfer to a deep metal container.
2. Rinse the lemon thoroughly and place in a cup with hot water for five minutes, so in the ready-made jam the zest will not give off bitterness. After that, cut the lemon in two halves (if there are bones, then remove them with a knife), without peeling, cut into half rings.
3. In a container with sliced melon, pour in all the sugar, mix, place half semirings of lemon on top of the pieces of melon, cover with a clean cloth and set aside for six hours to separate the juice.
4. After put the pan with melon in the sugar on the stove, adjust the gas, putting out a medium heat.
5. Put cinnamon sticks in melon jam, boil, stirring, after boiling for thirty minutes.
6. Put the melon mass in the bowl of the blender, remove the cinnamon stick, smash the mixture to a uniform consistency.
7. Shred the mass in a blender again to shift into a metal container, put on the stove, simmer the jam for fifteen minutes.
8. While the jam is warming up, prepare the dishes for the jam: wash the glass jars in a weak solution of baking soda and rinse thoroughly. If you are going to postpone the ready-made jam for storage for consumption in the winter, then the banks will need to be sterilized.
9. Pour the prepared dessert hot in prepared jars. Cover with a plastic cap or roll up.
3. Melon jam with apples
Ingredients:
• two small ripe melons;
• four medium green apples;
• granulated sugar - one kilogram. You can also prepare ground cinnamon, it will give an unusual delicious flavor to melon and apple jam.
Cooking Method:
1. The apples in this recipe give the melon jam a slight sourness, smoothing out the too cloyingly sweet taste of the melon itself. It is better to choose sweet and sour apples, for example, varieties of granny.
2. Prepare all the ingredients: wash the middle ripe melons, peel, remove the seeds, cut off the peel, cut the flesh into small pieces. Green apples, too, wash, peel, cut in half, cut the core with seeds, cut into medium pieces of arbitrary shape.
3. Take a cast-iron cauldron, rinse it well, wipe it dry with a clean towel, put it on the stove and heat it a little over moderate heat.
4. Put the sliced melon with apples in a prepared cauldron, cook on medium heat for at least half an hour, not forgetting to stir, so that the melon with apples does not burn.
5. Boil the softened fruits directly in a hot form grind in a blender.
6. In powdered melon and apple puree, pour in granulated sugar, mix, transfer the mass to the metal container, put it on the stove, adjust the heat to moderate. Boil, still stirring, for another 60 minutes.
7. After an hour, turn off the heat, cover the container with the boiled melon-apple jam with a lid and let it cool completely.
8. As soon as the jam has cooled, add cinnamon in it in the powder, mix well with a wooden spatula or spoon, put the pot with jam on the stove again, turn on the heat at the maximum, bring the mass to a boil. Then reduce the heat and cook for another half hour.
9. In the meantime, prepare the jars: thoroughly rinse the selected container first with warm water and soda, rinse thoroughly with cold water to remove excess soda. Place the cans down with your neck on a clean cloth so that water droplets can drain and the cans dry out a bit.
10. Pour hot melon-apple jam into prepared clean container, close tightly with lids (you can roll metal lids for the winter), leave them on the table all night to cool, and in the morning put them in the fridge and use as needed.
Melon jam - tips and useful tips
• It is best to buy melons in the markets or in stores where all products undergo appropriate checks. You should not buy melons on the slopes, as they are well absorbed into toxic exhaust gases passing cars.
• Melon ripeness can be determined by smell: light honey or flower notes indicate that the fruit is ripe, there is no aroma only in unresolved fruit. In the case of a ripe melon, when pressed, the peel seems to be “springy”; in the case of the unripe, it does not bend; in the overripe, it fails.
• If ripe melon varieties need to be selected for melon jam, well-ripened fruits are suitable for jam, since after cooking the mass will still have to be ground and the integrity of the pieces, respectively, is not so important. However, it is not necessary to acquire over-ripe varieties: the point is not in their structure, but in the fact that such melons lose their taste and lose their taste because of long lying, the flesh gives off an unpleasant bitterness.
• Even when using the same ingredients in equal amounts, depending on the type of melon, jam can be very thick or watery - the texture of the dessert does not affect the taste.
• Ready jam can be used not only as a dessert for tea, but also as a filling for pies, pancakes. Often, melon jam makes fruit drinks and even compotes. Enjoy your meal.
