I am getting fairly good at this jam making malarkey. Small batches though as who wants ten jars of jam?
This evening’s quick two jars, more than I was expecting, involved some overhanging figs, heavily laden with fruit. It astonished me that no one had already picked them: to be fair, I only noticed them as I almost slipped on a windfall. The windfall reminded me of a windfall picked off the roadside in Naxos about ten years – I can almost taste it now, sun ripened and warm from the sunshine. However, I was not going to try an urban windfall on a dark pavement in East London. The dogs had possibly got there first. But I looked up and saw that the overhanging branches were fairly laden for November.
So, tonight involved no recipe. I cooked the chopped figs with a bit of water, then got the potato masher out to break down the skin. I added some chopped walnuts, only a few as that was all I had, finished off some leftover flaked almonds and added as little sugar as I could get away with. I had to add a bit more as it was never going to turn to jam otherwise.
So, a good old stir with a long handled wooden jam spoon, intense heat to bring it to a really high temperature. I used a wok rather than the preserving pan as this was a fairly small amount. A handful of dried cranberries at the end for no other reason than I had noticed them in the larder.
Two jars of rather nice fig jam. And I scraped the wok before it went into the dishwasher.
Bagladytravels 