Jam!

I have been lucky enough to spend my Peace Corps service in a quintal that is home to a small Garden of Eden. The previous owner was Brazilian and planted a variety of fruit trees and vines. We have mangoes, guavas, grapes, ata, papaya, even passionfruit. I arrived at the height of mango season and in the middle of Christmas break. The yard was littered with fruit and I had nothing to do, so I began experimenting with jam-making. The first few batches went so well, it became a bit of an obsession over the last two years. Making jam is a great way to preserve seasonal fruit, is low-tech and low-cost, quick to learn and delicious; therefore, I figured I could share my methods so that others can use them at home, with their REDES groups or anywhere the opportunity arises. Instead of using specific recipes, I have collected up general techniques and adapted them to different kinds of fruits. 

My little house under the shade of mango, ata and guava trees.

The basis of every jam is the same: fruit, sugar and some kind of acid, cooked down into a delicious, spreadable, shelf-stable mush. The rule of thumb for jams that will be kept outside the refrigerator is to use equal parts fruit and sugar; less sugar will not preserve the fruit and the jam will ferment and/or mold much more quickly. Outside of this rule, making jam is not an exact science – you can taste, adjust and experiment as you go. For jam that will be kept in the fridge, you can pretty much use sugar to taste. I will first outline the basic process and then add details for specific fruits.

Jam is different from jelly in that it is made with fruit pulp, not just juice. Boiling chunks of whole fruit with sugar generally leads to a thick, but not jelly-like consistency. To thicken jam more, you can use pectin. This is commercially available in liquid or powder form in the US, but I haven’t seen it here in Moz. Some fruits (or parts of fruits) are naturally high in pectin, including lemon or lime seeds. When I use a limão, I rinse the seeds and keep them in the fridge until the next time I make jam. I tie them up in a little bit of cloth and boil them with the fruit. You can put them directly in the jam and fish them out before you put it in jars, but this is a lot of work.    

This is Nelson picking oranges in Maxixe, but I use the same technique to pick fruit in my yard.

The basic jam-ing process is as follows:

1. Prep your fruit: Clean it, remove the skin, and cut it into chunks.
2. Prep glass jars: Clean them and remove the labels. As you are making the jam, boil the jars to sterilize them. If you don’t sterilize the jars, the jam will go bad no matter the proportion of sugar you use!
3. Put the fruit and sugar in a pan, adding some water for firmer fruits and bring to a boil. Again, if conservation outside the fridge is your goal, start with 1:1 fruit and sugar. If not, start with less sugar and adjust to taste as you cook. I generally keep it on medium-high heat on the stove. Adjust as necessary for carvão. Heavier or non-stick pans are better as the fruit is less likely to stick or burn.
4. Add a bit of lemon juice, or another acidic juice (I love using a mix of passionfruit and limão). This is to taste: start with the juice of one lemon and see how it tastes! Add other flavorings if you want at this point: ginger, cinnamon or other spices.
5. Boil, boil, boil until it thickens, stirring frequently to make sure it isn’t burning on the bottom. If you have a freezer, put a small plate in and use this to test for readiness. When the jam is done, a bit dabbed onto the cold plate won’t run. If you don’t have a freezer, you will have to use your judgment (which gets easier with more practice).  You can test by pouring some slowly from a spoon – it should thicken up enough that it no longer runs in a thin, watery stream. It will get thicker as it cools, so it does not need to be the finished consistency before you take it off the heat.
6. Take your boiled jars out of the water and fill them with hot jam. Clean the edges and place the lids on top, but wait until the jam has cooled a little before you give the final tightening.

Tips for specific fruits:

Mango Jam

Mangoes are pretty simple. You can generally just peel the fruit, cut it off the stone and dice it up. For the small yellow mangoes that can be stringy, I cook the fruit down with some water and strain it before adding sugar and boiling it for real. Mangoes are pretty sweet, so I usually use more lemon juice in mango jam than with some other fruits.

Ideas for variations:
   - Grating in some fresh ginger adds depth of flavor with a mild kick.
   - Passionfruit pulp or juice is a great complementary flavor.
   - Dice a less-ripe mango and add the pieces halfway through the cooking process for a chunkier texture.
   - Thin strips of lime rind will candy as they cook, adding flavor and texture.

Mango-ginger jam made with passionfruit juice.

Guava Jam

Guavas are a lot of work, but the final product is one of my favorites. Start by peeling the fruit and cutting it in chunks. Be careful of bichos! About a third of the guavas from our trees tend to have little worm-y fly larvae in them. You can use your judgment to determine what proportion of each piece of fruit is usable. Unripe guava isn’t as sweet, but is high in pectin, so I generally include at least a few less ripe ones along with the fully mature ones.

After cutting up the fruit, put it in the pan and add enough water to cover the fruit. Boil it until the fruit begins to break apart. I happen to have a potato masher (incredibly useful for so many things in a kitchen without a food processor!), but use whatever you have to stir and mash the fruit as it cooks. Once it is a pretty, pink soup, take the mixture off the stove and strain out the seeds. I use a mesh strainer. Use the back of a spoon or a spatula to press the mixture through, so that you get more than the juice. You want to include the pulp, just not the tooth-cracking seeds. Once you have the seedless pulp, follow the directions above.

I LOVE making guava jam with the juice of a few passionfruits (strained to remove the seeds) in addition to the juice of one or two limões.

Papaya Jam

Papayas are soooo simple. Just peel it remove the seeds and cut it into chunks. Put the chunks in the pan, add water to cover and sugar. It breaks down quickly with heat and stirring – no other tricks necessary!

Papaya blends really well with other fruits and flavors:

-        Add orange juice and grate in a little orange rind.

-        Chopped pineapple and/or mango.

-        Add some cinnamon, ginger and allspice.

Fresh papaya; the jam cooking.

Banana Jam

Banana is also very simple. Just peel, chop and cover with water in the pan. I generally chop it pretty finely as it doesn’t always break down completely. Sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg result in something very close to apple butter. Delicious.

Passionfruit Jam

Passionfruit is one of the most labor-intensive jams, but the result is completely different from other jams and deeeeelicious.

1. Start with maybe 6-8 ripe passionfruit. Wash them well. Cut them in half, putting the pulp aside in a bowl.
2. Put the shells in a pan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Let them boil until the white inside has turned translucent and purple-ish. Pull the shells out of the water and let them cool. Scrape the translucent inside part onto a cutting board and discard the hard purple outer shell. The inner part should have a firm-ish jelly-like texture. Chop this finely and mix in the reserved pulp.
3.  In a pan add the pulp mixture and an equal amount of sugar. You can start with less sugar, but taste as you are cooking as too little sugar produces a bitter jam. Add water until it is soupy and stir-able.
4. Add lemon juice to taste. I also like to add the pulp of a couple more passionfruits.
5. Finish cooking as instructed above.

Passionfruit/maracujá; the jam as it cooks; the finished product.

Grape Jam

Grapes are also work, but the jam vale a pena. The grapes we have at our house are like small concord grapes, so I don’t know the exact process for the thinner-skinned red or green grapes you would find in a grocery store.

1.  Pull the grapes off their stems and wash them well. Pop the inner pulp out of the skin, putting the skins aside for later. Again, this process takes a while, but is easy for the little dark purple ones that grow here. Put on a movie and just get it done.
2. Similar to the process with guavas, put the light green inner pulp in a pan with some water. Boil and stir it until the fruit breaks down and you can strain out the seeds.
3.  Return the seedless pulp to the pan and add the skins, sugar and some lemon juice. I cook this mixture for a while over medium heat before bringing it to a boil in order to be sure that the skins break down some. Once they are nice and soft, I crank the heat up higher and follow the process explained above.

Grapes fresh off the vine; the pulp cooking down before the skins are added.

Lychee Jam

We don’t have lychees at our house, but last year I was given a few kilos by a friend who has trees and gave jam a try. You need a lot of fruit, so it would be pretty pricey if you have to buy lychees, but it was fantastic.

1. Peel the lychees and pop out the pits.
2. Chop the fruit very finely as it didn’t break down very much when cooked (although I really liked the chunky texture).
3. Add the chopped fruit, water to cover, sugar and lemon/lime/limão. I made it with a healthy dose of lime juice (we happened to have legit limes in the market at the time) and really liked the flavor combination. 
4. Follow the process outlined above.

The more jam I have made, the more comfortable I am improvising. I have gotten better at recognizing how flavors and consistencies change as the jam cools. BUT even in my early batches, I have yet to make one that didn’t taste great as long as I stuck to the same basic process. So, don’t be afraid to experiment and trust your own judgment. Have fun! 

If you have made jam and want to share tips or recipes, please add them in the comments!