Putting Food By - Janet Greene [87]
Pack in ½-pint jars, leaving ¾ inch of headroom; do not add salt. Add boiling-hot clam juice and boiling water if needed to cover the meats, leaving ½ inch of headroom. Half-close the lids and exhaust as for Crab, Lobster, Shrimp, above. Finish screwing bands down firmly tight.
Pressure-process ½-pint jars at 10 pounds (240 F/116 C) for 1 hour. Remove jars; air-cool naturally.
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
MINCED CLAMS
Remove the dark stomach mass as you dress the meats after the clams are opened. Proceed with washing the meats in brine and acid-blanching, as above. Drain. Put the meats through a food grinder, using a plate with ⅜-inch holes, or pulse-process in a food processor fitted with the steel blade to the consistency desired. Strain the clam broth through cheesecloth, bring to boiling. Pack minced clams in ½-pint jars, leaving ¾ inch of headroom; do not add salt. Add hot clam broth, leaving ½ inch of headroom.
Exhaust and Pressure-process as for whole meats.
12
Canning Convenience Foods
Because many people today live in quite small households, there is great value in having a variety of just-open-it foods at hand. Some of them: soup bases, broths, hearty small stews, vegetables and fruit canned in ½-pints—and even quart jars of pie fillings. In one farmhouse, a “company dinner” for four, two—or oneself—can be put together from jars brought up from the cellar. And large families can benefit from canned main- or side-dishes—in conjunction with what’s in the freezers.
Many of these foods were canned from small immediate supplies of ingredients: with the exception of Corn Relish benders, or a several days’ rhubarb binge, no large supplies were brought in to make a killer bout of canning. Enough. Here’s a sampling.
CONVERSIONS FOR CANNING CONVENIENCE FOODS
Do look at the conversions for metrics, with workable roundings-off, and for altitude—both in Chapter 3—and apply them.
There are no single vegetables given in the following recipes, because there are canned vegetables aplenty in Chapter 9. And there are canned meats ready to serve in Chapter 10, and seafood in Chapter 11. However, we have included several recipes-plus-procedures for using tomatoes in combination with a variety of vegetables; these are intended as bases for pasta sauces, or for whatever your own recipe file indicates, and are included under Meats and the Makings of Main Dishes.
Where flavorings usually included in such recipes are omitted, it is because some herbs and spices produce an unwanted taste after Pressure-processing. This is especially true of artificial sweeteners and salt substitutes: add these at the time the food is to be served. And note that salt may be left out, since it is optional.
Finally, the amounts canned are limited to pint-size jars, with only a couple of exceptions. Cans are omitted from most of the specific instructions for individual foods even though they are included throughout Chapters 7 to 11 on canning. However, it is unlikely that a householder cooking for just one or two people would crank up for using cans. So: jars are preferred. And pint jars or smaller (except for some of the Meat Broth/Stocks in quarts).
For ½-pint jars leave the same headroom as for pints. Process ½-pints the same length of time as is given for pints.
Remember that you will need more headroom at altitudes above 3000 ft/914 m. See Chapter 3, under the section Correcting for Altitude to save trouble and loss of liquid (or eventual loss of seal).
Before tasting any canned food with low-acid ingredients: you must be unshakably certain that your Pressure Canner was operated correctly—pressure gauge accurate and deadweight gauge signaling properly—and that requirements for times and corrections for altitude were followed.
Unless you are