My First Jam: Figs!

So maybe the title sounds a bit like a kid's story book ("My First Tooth"? I never read those...) but you could have given me a quarter and I couldn't have been any more excited than I already was.

Figs are in season now! Not here, I know, but in California and in Greece. So much for my locavore cred. It's actually my dream to eat a fig fresh off a tree in Greece. California I don't care so much about because it's about a quarter as romantic a notion. Not that I would turn down a trip to California. What am I, well-insulated? Nope. Montreal's cold! By the time the figs get here from foreign lands they're good, but my tongue knows from how good they are now that they could be that much better. It anticipates the sweetness tinged with the tiniest bit of acidity that brings out the flavour that's missing.

So I went to my fruit guy, Leopoldo, in Jean-Talon Market. He still doesn't know he's a my fruit guy. Sometimes I speak French with him, and sometimes I speak English with him, and I haven't gotten up the guts to speak Italian with him because me and him and romantic notions like speaking Italian don't jive. Just imagine us jiving...Ridiculous.

He had boxes of fresh figs from both California (green and black kinds) and Greece (just black). The Greek ones were larger, plumper, and looked juicier. The Californians were slightly cheaper and smaller. So I bought a basket of green Californians, a basket of black Californians, and a box of Greeks. Into my Granny cart the box went, and the delicate baskets over my shoulder. Of course, there was no way I was waiting the 50 minute commute home to sample the figs...they are sprayed because they're imported, I think, so I did find some clean running water first.

Leopoldo said his favourites were the Greeks, but this is the first time we disagree. The Greeks were the most beautiful inside, and the juiciest, but the flavour was lacking. Looks were deceiving because the greens were actually the most delicious, though the skin was thicker and thus the texture not as nice. It wasn't like these were going to go to waste, but my plan was to take the ones I liked the least and make jam out of them. So the Greeks got jammed...after I ate a few more, just to make sure I was right.


Ingredients:
2 lbs fresh figs (you really have to buy a lot so you don't feel bad about cooking them. Just think of the fig jam you'll get to eat in the middle of winter when there are no fresh ones to be found. It's not about denying yourself now, it's about treating yourself later) 
1 1/3 cup cane sugar
zest and juice of 1 small lemon

Remove the tips of the figs if there are any. Some of the Greek ones didn't have any, so that was easy.
In a large saucepan combine the figs with the sugar, lemon juice and zest. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring often. This takes awhile.

Cover and simmer over low heat for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Then remove the lid and continue simmering, stirring often, until the mixture thickens. The original recipe said nothing about chopping the figs, so they'd been cooking whole this entire time, but that's very un-jam-like. So after an hour and fifteen minutes I crushed them with a slotted spoon. It made the jam thicken up faster, but you really need to stir often so it doesn't burn to the pot. 

You want it to get to the gel stage, which is thicker than you think. To test to make sure it's done put a small plate or saucer in the freezer for a few minutes, then take it out and put a little drop of the hot fig mixture on it. Then put it back in the freezer for 1 minute. Take it out and press the top of the jam down lightly with a finger. If it wrinkles a little then it's done.

While figs are cooking, you need to prepare the jars and lids. Sterilize: Wash jars, lids, and tightening rings with hot soapy water. Put a big pot of water on to boil (a canning pot - it has to be big enough to fit about eight 125mL cans or four 250mL jars so that the jars are covered on top by 2 inches of water). Boil the rings and cans (not the lids) for about 20 minutes. Then just leave the jars in the hot water (you can turn off the heat but leave the lid of the pot on) until you're ready to fill the jars. 

Put some more water in a small saucepan and bring it to a simmer. Then reduce the heat to low and add the jar lids. You never want to boil the lids because they seal with wax and so you don't want to melt it all in the water. Always use new lids, but you can use old (clean) jars and rings. Leave the lids in the slightly simmering water until you're ready to use them. the recipe didn't say how long to simmer, but I figured 10 minutes was more than plenty. They're new so you don't need to sterilize them in the same way as the jars and rings I guess?

Have some cloth towels ready (or something onto which you can set the hot jars down) and remove the jars and rings from the hot water. My slotted spoon/tongs methods works well. None of this fancy jar lifter business. French women probably didn't have such contraptions when they started making jam. You kind of need to do this relatively quickly, but if you're slow, it's okay as long as you don't put the cooled jars back into boiling water directly. Since the heat is turned off on the large pot you should be fine.

Fill the jars to the bottom lip (1/2 inch headspace). Wipe the rims of the jars and the threads with wet paper towel. Place the warmed lids on the jars using tongs (don't touch the rims now) and then you can use your hands (but still preferably tongs) to put on the rings. Then you'll have to use your hands to tighten the rings, but that's fine since the rims are covered. 

You kind of need to create some sort of rack to put at the bottom of the large canning pot of almost boiling water that you used to sterilize the jars since the filled jars shouldn't touch the bottom of the pot. I used a vegetable steamer since my cake rack was too big. Cake racks should be circular, I've decided. One day I will design a circular cake rack that is multipurpose. Then my life will be complete. I can make jam and cake using the same rack. What else could a girl want? Well, not diabetes, I suppose. 

Place the filled jars back in the water on top of your make-shift or purchased rack and bring the water back to a boil (if it stayed at a boil from before you save time, you need to fill the jars really fast so that they don't have time to cool off before they go back in the water. Boil the jars for 10 minutes. Start the timer only when the water comes back to a boil.

After 10 minutes take out the jar and set them upside down. I don't know if this helps but I've seen it in some recipes and I figure it can't hurt. When the jars are cool, tighten the lids a little more, and you're done! Ooh! Labels! Just in case you get all the jams you make messed up...yeah...right...

I Pickled! Daikon Radish Threads and Easy Red Chilies

I feel like I'm one step closer to grandmother-hood. No, there is no man involved, or God forbid, children, but there is canning. I made my first canned things and if they don't get all mouldy in the next few weeks I'll feel an even great sense of accomplishment. So after an entire summer of twiddling my thumbs preserve-wise, I jumped on the canning bandwagon with two simple recipes:

Pickled Red Chilies and Pickled Radish Threads

Why not start with jam, you ask? That seems like where everyone starts. You get lulled into stuffing excess seasonal fruit into jars. Maybe tomatoes or peppers, but radishes? Who has an excess of radish? Apparently, I do.

Actually, what really happened is that I bought a really nice organic radish from the farmers' market and had some on a salad, only to remember that I hate daikon radish. I mean, a tiny bit is okay, but there was no way I wanted to force that whole radish into my body. So it was throw it out or find something fun to do with it. I also had a quarter pound of cayenne chilies sitting in my fridge from when I bought a huge bag of them a few weeks ago to make an amazing Vietnamese cooked hot sauce from VietWorldKitchen. The appeal of this recipe for pickled red chilies (not from the same website) was that I didn't have to remove the seeds from the chilies and I didn't need to chop them very much. They're pretty fuss-free as far as chilies go. They're also about 5 pages apart in one of my favourite books, "Beyond the Great Wall", a cookbook/travel book about the food and cultures of the ethnic minorities of China. It's a very interesting hybrid of recipes you may think of more as Korean, Thai, Afghani, etc. because of the outside influences and the vast terrain that is China.

Anyway, to pickle these things I combined all my just-learned canning knowledge. I had to adjust the process a little to be extra safe. Here was the method.

I brought a huge pot of water on the stove in my stock pot and put 3 empty (cleaned in hot, soapy water) jars and rings inside to make sure the water came a good 2 inches above the tops of the jars. You could double or triple these recipes to make lots, but I was just experimenting, and the recipes only made about 3 jars-worth of pickles. I brought the pot to a boil and boiled for 5 minutes. The bringing it to a boil stage took so long since there was so much water that I had time to prepare the rest of the recipe. I'd bought new lids for my recycled jars (skipping using the jar that had contained moose meat...) and washed those in hot soapy water too, being careful that my hands were very clean. I lay them on clean towels and didn't touch them again with my hands. I had another clean towel ready for my jars too.

Okay, then the recipes.

Red Chilies:
1/4 pound of long red ones, washed, stems removed, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces (measure out 1 packed cup)
1 cup rice vinegar
1 tbsp kosher salt (I had coarse sea salt. Apparently recipes call for kosher salt because it doesn't have the iodine or anti-caking additives of table salt that make the pickle brine go cloudy and the pickled things dark, but any salt is fine. It'll just look weird. My coarse sea salt may be fine since I doubt is has these additives)
1/4 tsp sichuan peppercorns
1 start anise, whole or in pieces

So you've got the chilies chopped and measured. Now bring the vinegar to a boil. While it's coming to a boil add the salt and stir to dissolve. Then add the peppercorn and star anise. Bring it to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer 30 seconds. It'd not like it'll go from a boil to just a simmer in 30 seconds, but just don't let it boil out of control. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm. You only want to add hot brine to your pickles so it can't get too chilly. Done.

Pickled Radish Threads
1/2 pound daikon radish, peeled and coarsely grated (or very thinly sliced, but it won't be "threads" this way)
1 scallion, minced (I figured they meant green onion here, but I didn't have any, so I skipped it and upped the onion below)
1/4 of a small onion (I used a small red onion that kind of had green onion ends. The ends weren't fresh anymore but I figured the red onion was enough like a shallot to substitute for both the onion and scallion in the recipe, so I used a bit extra)
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tbsp kosher salt (here's that salt again. See above for what I did)
1/2 tsp dry-roasted sichuan peppercorns, ground (OOH I love these things. To roast, put them in a frying pan over medium heat for about 4 minutes, or until they're fragrant. Then grind them in a mortar and pestle, coffee grinder, or in a closed bag with something heavy like a pot. You can also skip them)
1 1/2 cups rice vinegar

I have this cool slicer thing that looks like a relic of the industrial revolution. It has fun attachments for grating things to different sizes. I used the small grater and made angel hair pasta sized radish threads. I then chopped the red onion but realized I should have just sliced those up too using the same size attachment on my contraption. Could have done the same with the ginger, but minced is nicer since it spreads better in the pickle.

Anyway, combine the radish, onion (scallion), and ginger in a large bowl and stir to combine. Roast the peppercorns and have the vinegar handy, at least at room temperature, but it would be better to put it on low to medium heat in a small saucepan. Canning safety and all.

Now just wait for your jars to be boiled for the five minutes. Rolling boil. None of this wimpy steaming simmer business. So I don't have a jar lifter. I have tongs and a slotted spoon. I figured women have been canning without jar lifters for ages, so so could I. They probably didn't have tongs either, but the point is they adapted and worked with what they had. I took the pot off the heat and carefully got my tongs under the lip of the first jar and my slotted spoon under the bottom of the jar. I got it out of the water and carefully poured out the water from inside the jar. With a little re-adjusting of the jar I then got it onto a clean cloth next to the pot. 1 down, 2 to go.

When all three were out I pout the lids of the three jars in the hot water to have a tea party with the rings that I just left in there. Out came my chopsticks (of my drawer, not the water. I cleaned them in more hot soapy water - really my hands are like prunes now - and got to work on my chilies). I stuff as many chilies as I could into a jar, filling it up to the first lip and stuffing them down to make room for some more. I poured the heated vinegar/salt/star anise over it to just a little below the edge. There was a little leftover of both the chilies and brine so I put that in another can. Then back to my tongs and slotted spoon since enough time had elapsed to soften the wax on the lids in the hot water. I got two lids out, one by one, and put them on top of my jars of chilies. The second jar wasn't full, so I wasn't really going to let it ferment like it should, but I figured I'd do all the rest of the process for practice. Then I got two lids out and tightened hand-tight. Phew!

Now the radishes. I took half the vegetable mixture and stuffed it into a mason jar (bigger than a normal jam jar but with the same size lid) since I only wanted to make one jar. Then I added 1/2 tbsp of kosher salt and all of the roasted and ground peppercorn. Then I added the rest of the radish mixture and then the rest of the salt. Finally I poured on the vinegar to just below the top. The jar was stuffed pretty full, as it should be. Back to my tongs and slotted spoon. Out came a lid, carefully placed on top and then a ring to tighten. Now you shake the mixture to distribute the salt and vinegar. Oh I also "bubbled" it after adding the vinegar. That means pressing down with chopsticks or a spatula to get air bubbles out and condense the jar contents. My only concern was that the radishes were threads so they'd spilled a bit over the rim and were tough to get into the jar, and I probably should have wiped down the rim with a clean cloth, but I used my chopsticks well to move things into the jar and I hadn't touched anything with my fingers except the body of the jar and the tightening ring. I never touched the lid. Done! Well, almost.

The recipes say now to leave the jars in sunny places, but after my canning workshop I wanted to be extra careful, so I put my jars (only the 2 full ones since the other was going to be opened right away anyway) back into my almost boiling water using my tong/spoon method, and brought the water back to a boil. When it got back to a boil (just a few minutes since it retained so much heat from before) I set a timer for 20 minutes. Ding! Tong/spoon and the jars were safely out onto a cloth to cool. Now it went to a sunny spot by the window for 2-4 days. Well, it went there for a few hours and then I figured it wasn't warm enough and so I put it in the oven with the light on. During these 2-4 days you're supposed to occasionally shake the jar. That's all there is to it. Keeps indefinitely if refrigerated and well sealed. What a miracle.

The chilies also got some window time before going in the oven with the light on. They get two days of light and then get refrigerated for 2 weeks. That mellows the flavour, takes away the heat and increases the sweetness. Mmm...My extra half jar got opened right away (it popped! but that doesn't mean it was properly sealed. With all that air in there it couldn't have been good, so it's good to know that a jar can pop and still not be okay).

A few notes: if you use a different kind of chili you can strip out the seeds to decrease the heat and emphasize the flavour.

I had extra vinegar brine for the chilies and that's apparently normal (says the recipe). Just use a funnel or a yogurt container with the bottom cut off to pour the brine into the jar. Pouring from a saucepan is not a great idea. I now have vinegar-ed kitchen cloths.

Maybe eating a quick-pickled cayenne is not a great idea, even if it is delicious. I took my half jar and had it with some potatoes and mmm...it was good, but wow did my stomach and mouth burn after that one. A little goes a long way. Stop before the burn kicks in because by then it's too late.

Sticking Things In Cans (Well, jars, really...but it wasn't such a "jarring" experience)

Today I learned to can. I'm a very strange girl in her 20's who obsesses about things such as canning. I've been trying to find someone to show me the wonders of this jar-art all summer. Well, I understand already how wonderful it is, so maybe more the intricacies of canning was what I needed to learn.

And finally, an opportunity! The Concordia Sustainable Food Festival and a one-hour "learn to can" workshop. There was a hand-out. I sat in the front and was the overly eager student who asks a ton of questions, not even noticing the people around me and whether or not they were becoming pissed off. Fortunately there was a lot of time to ask questions, and nobody got to the point where they started yelling at me to shut up and watch. So that was good.

The jars were pre-sterilized before coming to the site (20 minutes at a specific temperature. Look it up! Or clean them in the dishwasher, or my aunt's method of 20 minutes in the oven at 220 Fahrenheit), which is not ideal, but they got warmed in boiling water so they wouldn't burst when put back in boiling water once stuffed with vegetables. The vegetables were all pre-sliced (raw) - carrots, cauliflower, green beans, zucchini, onions, garlic - and some standard spices (coriander, black pepper, and fresh thyme.

Important stuff:

When you warm the jars, don't wait for the water to boil and then put them in. That defeats the whole point. You don't want to shock the glass by putting them directly into the boiling water. Better yet, just leave them in the water after sterilizing them, until you're ready to fill them.

When you stuff vegetables you want to avoid touching the lip of the jar. That was important. That can cause contamination. That's why you want to sterilize immediately before stuffing, if possible.

Always follow a recipe! An online recipe is fine, but don't just wing it unless you're a Grandmother who's been doing this all her life, and even then you'd have to be a Grandmother who was okay with potentially dying from botulism. I mean, you really only ever want to be so old anyway, right?

Use an old yogurt container as a funnel to pour the brine of vinegar, water and salt into the jars stuffed with vegetables into the bottom of the jar lip. Stuffed - as in really full. All-you-can-eat sushi kind of full.

Once the brine is in the jar use a spatula or chopsticks or something pointy and thin to push any air bubbles out from under the vegetables. You want them as packed in as possible. The brine should come up a few centimetres above the vegetables, so it shouldn't overflow the jar, but make it pretty full.

Use tongs (or chopsticks) to take the heated and sterilized sealing lid (the tops that pop on jars of homemade things when you first open them...in theory). Don't pick it up with your hands or all your careful sterilizing will be for naught.

Then you can use your hand to pick up the sealing ring (the thing that twists) and place it over the lid, and tighten it. Not too tight, but just closed solidly without too much extra tightening.

You've got to do all this before the jars cool off or they may explode in the boiling water. You can also put them into not quite boiling water and then start timing the 20 minutes to seal them once the water returns to a boil.

Boil 20 minutes on a high rolling boil. DO NOT lower the heat. It's like lobster - just let it boil.

Wait 3 or 4 weeks (or less depending on the vinegar, or the pickling method, apparently, since pressure cookers are different and different methods that don't use vinegar may give different times, or if the vegetables, sauces or fruit are already cooked they may not need much time.

To put the jars into the boiling water and take them out you're going to want to invest in just one item: a jar lifter. Not too expensive and well worth it.

Just make sure the jars are covered by at least two inches of water when you sterilize and when you boil them after stuffing. Very important.

Some places say turn them over when you remove them from the boil at the end to seal, but some don't, so just follow a recipe you trust. The workshop people recommended a blog called "Food In Jars" for lots of tips and recipes.


Why I love canning:
You can buy in bulk and eat local all winter if you can stand a ton of sugar or vinegar or lactic acid or oil.

You don't actually have to cook the vegetables! It's not "raw" food since some things get boiled (the vinegar and all and the vegetables sort of get cooked, but I'm sure it's better than boiling the heck out of the zucchini in the first place.

It's so versatile! Everything from sweet sauces to infused liqueurs, to jams, jellies, pickles, fruits, herbs, etc. Brilliant.

There are no preservatives!!!!!!!!!!!

It's so affordable and you can recycle jars (the jar itself and the tightening ring, but not the lids). So all those jars of preserves you didn't want? Well, if you didn't re-gift them on someone else you can suffer your way through them and then sterilize them and make something even more delicious. At then you''ll understand all the work that went into making them in the first place.

Next stop, chili peppers.

Happy canning...er, jarring...er, happy disturbing canning?