Putting Food By - Janet Greene [57]
Hot pack only, in R-enamel or white enamel cans. Fill cans to the top with simmering juice, leaving no headroom; seal (the step of exhausting to 170 F/77 C is not necessary when juice is simmering-hot). Process in a H–W Bath at 190 F/88 C—30 minutes for either No. 303 or No. 401 cans. Remove cans; cool quickly.
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
Peach Nectar
Prepare and process as for Apricot Nectar, above.
Pear Nectar
Prepare and process as for Apricot Nectar, above.
Plum Juice (and Fresh Prune)
Hot–Water Bath only. Use Hot pack only. Use jars or R-enamel cans.
Choose firm-ripe plums with attractive red skins. Wash; stem; cut in small pieces. Measure. Put in an enameled or stainless steel kettle, add 1 cup water for each 1 cup prepared fruit. Bring slowly to simmering, and cook gently until fruit is soft—about 15 minutes. Strain through a jelly bag. Add ¼ cup sugar to each 2 cups juice, or to taste. Reheat just to a 200 F/93 C simmer.
Pack and process as for Berry Juices, above.
Rhubarb Juice
This makes good sense if you have extra rhubarb, because it can be used for a delicious quencher, and was the main ingredient of a hill-country wedding punch in olden days. And rhubarb is said to be good for our teeth.
Boiling–Water Bath only. Use Hot pack only. Use jars or R-enamel or white enamel cans.
Wash and trim fresh young red rhubarb, but do not peel. Cover the bottom of the kettle with ½ inch of water, add rhubarb cut in ½-inch pieces. Bring to simmering, and cook gently until soft—about 10 minutes. Strain through a jelly bag. Reheat juice, adding ¼ cup sugar to each 4 cups of juice to hold the flavor, and simmer at 200 F/93 C until sugar is dissolved.
Hot pack, in jars. Pour simmering juice into hot scalded (sterilized) jars, leaving ½ inch of headroom; adjust lids. Process in a B–W Bath (212 F/ 100 C)—10 minutes for either pints or quarts. Remove jars; complete seals if using bailed jars.
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
Hot pack, in R-enamel or white enamel cans. Fill cans to the top with simmering juice; seal (exhausting is not necessary if juice is simmering-hot). Process in a B–W Bath (212 F/100 C)—15 minutes for either No. 303 or No. 401 cans. Remove cans; cool quickly.
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
8
Canning Tomatoes
Tomatoes are far and away the most popular food for canning at home.
One reason is their versatility. Canned as “cut-up plain” (the specific howto is coming in a minute), they may be heated with a favorite herb and turned into a basic salsa di pomidoro for pasta; with another vegetable and chicken or rabbit, they become a hunter’s stew; added to a glorious fisherman’s catch, they help build a bouillabaise. When we can them puréed they are a mainstay for soups; canned whole and titivated with mild onion and tangy dressing, they are served cold as a winter salad at the side of roast beef. They can be reduced to a paste and put by in small jars to help give blush to a sauce. Juiced alone or in combination they become the healthiest of appetizers.
Another attribute is their abundance. They are grown at home in every likely corner of North America; they are sold at countless farmers’ markets and roadside stands. We still put by relatives of the great classic canning tomatoes, so juicy that they can be peeled, quartered, and pressed into jars to create their own splendid canning liquid. However, each year seedsmen are offering more small, blunt, oblong varieties with few seeds, reluctant juice, and plenty of firm flesh. These tomatoes, so good for pasta sauces, are ideal for the commercial processor, but they require extra attention and time from the householder. As we saw in the section How Heat Penetrates a Container of Food, in Chapter 6, “The Canning Methods,” when heat is carried by the swirl of liquid to the innermost part of the pack, that is, by convection, it requires less time to be effective than when heat is led by conduction to the center through a dense pack, one with less liquid.