This past weekend, I traveled down to the Daybird's Ogre Mansion for a bit of canning. It's almost Thanksgiving, and I needed to make the whole cranberry relish that I am required to bring to my family's dinner. I had found some very small clementines (clementinies?) that I desperately wanted to candy whole, plus I've been thinking about trying to make an Italian-style mostarda.
Daybird was interested in the canning process, as she hadn't actually done it herself. It's been a few years for me, so I had to do a quick review to remember specific water bath times, etc. Finding canning jars this time of year is always a bit of a challenge, but we managed to get a couple dozen of the 1-pint size.
I started Saturday with the mostarda. I have to say up front that it was not the success I was hoping for, but I know what I did wrong and the next batch will be better. I chopped up some Meyer lemons, oranges, dried apricots, and sweet onions, then simmered them in pomegranate juice. Toward the end, I added some roasted mustard seeds (ground up) and some roasted coriander. The peels from the citrus made the product too bitter, so I added salt and sugar to cut down the bitterness. Popped it into sterilized canning jars and processed for 10 minutes. We had it with our baked ham for dinner, and the saltiness of the ham also ameliorated the bitter taste. I found that the mustard flavor really didn't come through as much as I wanted. I plan to mix the finished mostarda with some prepared mustard (something spicy) to get closer to the result I was aiming for.
Sunday was cranberry relish and the candied clementines. I started out by scrubbing the clementines and removing the little green thingies on the stem end. Pierce 6-8 times with a toothpick. Submerge them in a simple syrup of 3 cups sugar to 2 cups water and simmer until tender. Place in jars and process in a water bath for 10 minutes. I haven't tried them yet, but I imagine slicing them very thinly and using them as a garnish for meats or stinky cheese or on a dessert. There was leftover syrup, so I saved that for using in drink-making.
Cranberry relish is as simple as it gets. I use one quart of tangerine juice (had to squeeze it myself this year, but I usually do store-bought), two bags of Ocean Spray cranberries, two bags of Dole Mixed dried fruit (apple, cranberry, raisin, etc.), one box of golden raisins (don't get the dark ones), 2 oranges cut into supremes, and 2 oranges juiced. Wash and pick over the cranberries and discard any squishy ones. Put all ingredients into a large pot. Bring to a boil and simmer until all the cranberries pop. Add Demerara sugar or honey to taste. Either pour into canning jars and process 10 minutes in a water bath, or freeze.
If you use the golden raisins rather than the dark ones, the finished product looks like stained glass.
Somebody comment, please! Be kind; it's my first blogpost.
~the nightowl
That sounds yummy. I did a quick & dirty cranberry relish myself tonight. One bag of cranberries, three clementines, squeezed, plus the zest of one, 1 cup sugar, 1 very large cinnamon stick broken in half, and about a shot of dry sherry. I cooked it on the stove for about 10-15 minutes, tasted, declared YUM!, fished out the cinnamon stick and dumped the lot into a bowl and popped it into the fridge.
ReplyDeleteWe'll see how it tastes tomorrow. I know I didn't get all the clementine seeds out.