Putting Food By - Janet Greene [128]
Use only enough water to cover. Don’t salt it now because salt and onion flavors tend to disappear in freezing while some herbs get strong or bitter.
When it’s half-cooked, the vegetable should be cooled only enough to allow you to handle the filled pouches comfortably. Toss with a little melted butter or olive oil, if you like. Leave headroom according to the manufacturers instructions. Refrigerate the sealed bags for an hour before freezing them.
Asparagus. Choose uniformly slender spears; trim to length to fit your bags with sufficient headroom, or cut small. Cook gently in your usual manner for 5 minutes. Drain, cool slightly; pack and seal.
Beans—green/Italian/snap/string/wax. Cook gently for 5 to 10 minutes. Drain, cool slightly; pack and seal.
Broccoli. Cook split young spears gently for 5 minutes. Drain, cool slightly; pack and seal.
Carrots. Cook slices gently for 10 minutes. Drain, cool slightly; pack and seal.
Cauliflower. Cook prepared flowerets gently for 5 minutes. Drain, cool slightly; pack and seal.
Corn, whole-kernel. Husk, remove silk, wash. Cut from the cob over a bowl to catch the milk. In its milk—plus only enough water to keep from sticking—cook gently for 3 minutes. Drain, cool slightly; pack and seal.
Peas, green. Cook shelled peas gently for 5 minutes. Drain, cool slightly; pack and seal.
Spinach, etc. Remove stems and any tough midribs, cut large leaves in several pieces. Boil gently for 2 minutes. (Or, for very tender leaves, shake off extra water and steam-sauté in a little oil, covered, for half the full cooking time you use for this method—about 2 minutes.) Drain, cool slightly; pack and seal.
18
Jellies, Jams, and Other Sweet Things
Traditionally, newcomers to food preservation start by making jams and jellies, and seemingly in no time have branched out to create their own combinations of these prettiest of put-by foods. And it should give them deep satisfaction (and not in the least take the shine off their achievement) to know that they are making use of the fourth major method for preserving food: and this is to decrease the available water that the spoiler micro-organisms need, and thereby prevent their growth. Without perhaps realizing it, jellymakers rely upon the ability of sugar to tie up the water by chemical means. This ability, plus the increased acid of the fruit, the added heat in cooking, and the lack of oxygen in the jelly jar, all add up to a virtually unbeatable combination for a safe and attractive product.
Important as sugar is, though, today’s feeling for better nutrition leads to reduced sugar in many confections based on old-style recipes—and the best way to reduce this sweetener is to rely on only the natural pectin in the fruit, or to be cagey in adding pectin. Reason: big yields depend on lots of sugar, and jellies and jams made with added commercial pectin usually call for a good deal more sugar to go with it. This chapter, therefore, is organized according to some-sugar/low-sugar/no-sugar procedures, and will include methods for handling the often equal measures of fruit and sugar that our great-grandmothers believed in, then tell how to deal with low-methoxyl pectin and its sparing use of an added sweetener, and finally how to make spreads without any sugar at all.
CONVERSIONS FOR JAMS, JELLIES, AND PRESERVES
Do look at the conversions for metrics, with workable roundings-off, and for altitude—both in Chapter 3—and apply them. Note: this chapter has B–W Bath processing—make your altitude adjustments accordingly.
Equipment for Jellies, Jams, Etc.
For starters, your regular kitchen utensils will be adequate. Roughly in order of importance, you will need:
6- to 8-quart enameled or stainless steel kettle with a good lid (so it can double as a B–W Bath canner if you do not have one).
A jelly bag for straining juice. You can make a good one from ½ yard