Staying currant in the kitchen

I thought I was alone. Just me and my moment of sheer bliss.

"You sound funny," my husband's voice cut through my illusion.

I imagine I did. I had just cracked a jar of the red currant jelly I made earlier this week and slathered it on a slice of toast. As I devoured my crusty snack, relishing its ruby red coating, I snapped my tongue against the roof of my mouth, sucking every bit of the sweet yet snappy flavour of red currants off my toast.

I also tasted something else.

Success.

Despite espousing the virtues of finding and eating local food, stretching the harvest to the fullest that every mile in my diet provides, I have never made jelly or jam with local fruit. I've pickled beans and peppers. I've made my own tomato sauce and frozen Linda's broccoli. But jam, jelly ? those various incarnations of preserved fruit ? have always been intimidating for me. It's a pretty precise practice. Mess up on the addition of the sugar or pectin and your little culinary concoction could end up being, well, toast.

But I was determined this would be the year that I, Tiffany Mayer, would make jam or jelly. I even bought a box of pectin last summer to focus on through the winter, build anticipation and help me work up the courage to this point.

Now, I don't know what the big deal was. I didn't have to worry about my culinary prowess taking a punch because jelly, it turns out, is a cinch.

Mash some berries. Boil some berries. Strain the juice. Sweeten some juice with lots of sugar. Add the pectin and jar. The hardest part was picking off the stems before mashing and in hindsight, I could have ? should have ? done a better job scraping the foam off the top of my freshly boiled concoction before jarring. The entire process took about an hour and a half.



I was forced into a jelly-making jam when my husband arrived home armed with about two-pounds of red currants from a bountiful bush in the backyard of some friends.

For days they sat in my fridge. I love currants but truth is, I've only ever eaten them in jelly form ? jelly made by someone else. What to do, what to do. So I mustered up the courage to ask for two more pounds of the sour, red gems after finding a jelly recipe online that didn't invoke the fear of the culinary gods in me. I was lulled into feeling good about the idea by the romantic prologue by recipe's author, who wrote about finding the instructions on one of their mother's old, hand-written recipe cards.

I set to work earlier this week and this is what I got: jars of bona fide currant jelly. It looks like red currant jelly. It tastes like red currant jelly. I'm certain I have homemade red currant jelly, now in my pantry.

Toast has never tasted so good.

Currant Jelly

Ingredients:
4 pounds fresh red currants
1 cup water
7 cups white sugar
4 fluid ounces liquid fruit pectin

Directions:

Place the currants into a large pot, and crush with a potato masher or berry crusher if you have one. Pour in 1 cup of water, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Strain the fruit through a jelly cloth or cheese cloth, and measure out 5 cups of the juice.
Pour the juice into a large saucepan, and stir in the sugar. Bring to a rapid boil over high heat, and stir in the liquid pectin immediately. Return to a full rolling boil, and allow to boil for 30 seconds.Remove from heat and skim off foam from the top. Ladle or pour into sterile 1/2 pint jars, filling to within 1/2 inch of the top. Wipe the rims with a clean damp cloth. Cover with new sterile lids and rings. Process covered in a bath of simmering water for 10 minutes or the time recommended by your local extension for your area.

Source: Allrecipes.com, BJ Borsody