Strawberry Marmelade

Saturday is our usual shopping day. The day when we buy groceries for the following week. Sometimes, we think of finishing the grocery shopping during the weekdays itself and relax on Saturdays, but it just doesn't work out. This week too we did all our shopping on Saturday only.

In Frankfurt, one of my favourite destination is Kleinmarkthalle, where I could get fresh fruits and vegetables of good quality, direct from the farmers. It is just like the weekly markets or so in other places, only that, this market is indoor and it is open 6 days a week. Though the prices are pretty higher than a supermarket, I think, it is worth the quality. This time, we found fresh strawberries and grapes. The grapes were damn sweet. The strawberries were bright red, fresh and smelled great. I thought of making something out of these wonderful berries and suddenly, the idea of making a jam. This is my first ever attempt at preparing a jam and it was not as difficult as I thought it would be.

Ingredients:

Strawberries - 500g
Jam sugar(jelly sugar) - 250g
Lemon - juice of half a lemon

Method:

Before you get into the preparation, get some suitable air-tight glass bottle(s) and sterilise it in hot water and keep ready.

Wash and clean the strawberries. Remove the leaves and cut into small small pieces. Take this in a heavy bottomed vessel and add jelly sugar to it. Mix and let it stand for an hour, so that the sugar dissolves by itself. Now, cook this by stirring continuously. Remove the froth formed as and when required. Allow the mix to boil for a minute or two and then add the lemon juice. Keep stirring continuously and allow to boil for at least 4 more minutes. Do a jelly-trial once or twice and when the trial succeeds, remove from the heat. Fill it into the bottle(s) and close the lid. Turn upside down and allow it to rest on the lid for a few minutes. Store in a cool place.

Enjoy this home-made jam with bread of any kind. Goes well with Croissants.

Jelly-Trial: Take a small quantity of the mix and put it in a plate. After some 5 seconds, check for the required consistency. If it is jelly like, then it means DONE!!

Note:

• When buying jelly sugar, take care of the ingredients, if you intend to refrain from things like gelatine. The jelly sugar I used here contains pectin from apple, which gives the jelly like consistency.
• I have read that the skin of apple and normal sugar can be used instead of jelly sugar, but I have not tried it myself.

I'm sending this as an entry to;

• Anyone can Cook event of Taste of Pearl City.
• The Veggie/Fruit a Month -Strawberry event by Pari of Foodelicious, originally started by Priya of Mharo Rajasthan recipes and
• Smita's Cooking With Fruits Event.