Fresh Guava Jam
Hurricane Matthew is churning through the southern Caribbean this weekend, and we can already feel the winds picking up and the temperature falling here in Port-au-Prince. Currently, it looks like the eye-of-the-storm is likely to pass just off the southwestern tip of Haiti, but the damage may be significant. People are bracing for the storm; battening down the hatches and stocking up the larders as they are able. Keep Haiti in your prayers.
One of the new additions to our pantry stock, in addition to some pickled red onions and granola, is Fresh Guava Jam, courtesy of jam making with our staff this week. Rather than traditional Cuban-style guava jam, which relies on long cooking to create a darker caramelized flavor, our Fresh Guava Jam has a bright fresh fruit flavor. It is not too sweet and has a tart bite from fresh squeezed key limes, which balance the warm tropical sweetness of the aromatic guavas.
Yield: 4-6 half-pint jars of jam
Ingredients:
8 cups roughly chopped guava (ends and black spots removed, peels left on)
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoon low sugar pectin
1/3 cup key lime juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Steps:
Combine chopped guavas, water, and sugar in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, until the guavas are tender.
Remove from heat, and puree until smooth (you can reserve some guava chunks to add back in after pureeing if you want a chunkier jam).
Return to heat, add the pectin and salt and bring to a rolling boil and boil for 1 minute.
Remove from the heat, and stir in the lime juice.
For fridge jam (eat within 2-3 weeks), simply ladle into air tight containers and transfer to the fridge when cooled. To can the jam for longer preservation follow a step-by-step water canning guide.
Easy Guava Jam Bars
November means fall back home; the smell of mulled cider, pumpkin picking, and trick-or-treating. Feeling nostalgic for the tastes and colors of fall, while sweating in the 90s here in Haiti, we created a Caribbean-fall dessert, Easy Guava Jam Bars. These easy to make, and addictive bars combine the warm spices of cinnamon and allspice with the tropical sweetness of fresh guava jam. It is a stunning match of tart bright guava enveloped in a warmly spiced buttery crumble.
Buttermilk Popovers with Quick Strawberry Jam
For my father's family, Christmas Eve, Heiliger Abend, is the heart of Christmas. It is a magical dark and cold night, where old hymns are sung by memory in German, acapella, by candlelight. My sister and I would look forward to the special appearance of traditional Christmas sweet and savory foods made by my Oma for Christmas Eve snacking. For Heiliger Abend this year, our young family of three is once again together. We will start new traditions as a family, and borrow from the past. Tonight we will be making my Oma's roast meat filled pastries, fleisch pieroshki with pickles. As a nod to our ravenous little eater's current favorite breakfast, will crank up the oven Christmas morning to make a batch of these airy buttermilk popovers with homemade strawberry jam, before an afternoon Christmas feast with our family. We will be thinking of our family and friends far away this Christmas as we celebrate, Merry Christmas! This recipe is inspired by Jenny Rosenstrach and adapted from King Arthur Flour.
Roasted Rhubarb Strawberry Oven Jam
Every year, in the hot months of summer, my Oma would make oven jam. My Opa would buy her bushels of fresh apricots and plums from the farmers markets, and she would slow roast the fruit until they caramelized and the juices thickened, creating silky fruit jams that she tucked into layers of her torte cakes for celebrations throughout the year. In the years since she died, I find myself craving the custardy texture, and caramelized fruit taste of her jams. I started experimenting with my own oven jams recently, and found them to be simple, fail-safe, and delicious. My favorite is this tangy spring rhubarb strawberry jam, with rhubarb fresh from a friend's garden.
Black Rice Pudding with Coconut & Lemongrass
Black Rice Pudding with Coconut & Lemongrass grew out of our friend Marcia's request for a creative way to highlight the unique flavor and earthy purple hue of black forbidden rice. During my time in Cambodia as a college student, I lived with an outstanding cook who taught me to coax flavor from a limited set of ingredients, often only herbs and rice. This dessert marries the nutty sweetness of black forbidden rice with lemongrass's distinctive bright and herby citrus flavor. Using only coconut milk and egg yolks in the subtly sweet sauce allows the dish to be gluten free and dairy free, two special requests of our friend Marcia. In this case, keeping dairy and thickeners out of the picture allows for a purer flavor and lighter texture. We used fresh mango and toasted coconut as a garnish to contrast with the creamy purple pudding.
Blueberry Bay Leaf Quick Jam
We started our holiday weekend with an early morning visit to a local farm for some berry picking. The blueberry bushes were flush with dusky blue berries. With our crates brimming with berries, we headed to the kitchen to develop a jam recipe that would preserve the subtle sweet flavor of blueberries, without the accompanying cloying sweetness that is common to many berry jams. Our Blueberry Bay Leaf Quick Jam is simple to make, small batch, refrigerator style (not canned) jam that is accessible to first time and seasoned jam makers alike. We made this particular jam with one of my uncles', an avid jam eater and aficionado, in mind. This Blueberry Bay Leaf Quick Jam has a soft and graceful texture, excellent for spreading. Paul added a unique twist to the recipe to further preserve the raw blueberry flavor, he combined the potency of a blueberry jelly base with raw berries, resulting in juicy fresh blueberries suspended in a deep magenta preserve. Blueberry Bay Leaf Quick Jam has just the bare minimum amount of sugar allowing for the very fresh blueberry taste to shine, with a subtle woodsy note of bay leaves and Meyer lemon supporting in the background. While our plan had been to bring my uncle a jar of this Blueberry Bay Leaf Quick Jam during an upcoming visit, I'm afraid that at our current rate of consumption, we will have polished off all the jam within a few short days. It is just that good!
