Peach-ginger-lime preserves

24Sep08

People go on and on about local foods, but this was the local-est.  My coworker, who lives about three blocks away, has a peach tree in her yard that was about to drop all of its fruit.  She very kindly climbed the tree and picked peaches while I caught them in a bag and fretted for her safety.   In all, I took home about four pounds of peaches, and once I cut into them, decided to use about half.

I got the peaches home and tasted them.  Not bad, but not truly outstanding in a way that I trusted them to be great on their own.  So I added ginger to my recipe, and, since I was making lime curd that day anyway, some lime peel and juice.  I was in the mood for Thai food, which took this jam in a weird direction.

It was a good experiment.  The peaches actually cooked up better than expected, and the warm spice of the ginger plus the brightness of the lime seemed to work together with the fruit and make it somewhat better than the sum of the parts.  Here’s how:

2 lbs peaches, diced small, unpeeled

8 oz. organic sugar

1 Tbsp. grated fresh ginger

2 Tbsp. crystallized ginger

1 Tbsp. grated lime peel

2.5-3 Tbsp. lime juice

Ready to sit overnight

Cut up the fruit and put it in a large, nonreactive bowl.  Stir in the other ingredients and then cover and let sit overnight to macerate.  I usually do this in the refrigerator, but if your kitchen is cold, you could leave it out.

The next day, pour the mixture into a large (wide) nonreactive pot.  Wider is better, because you want to cook off as much extra water as possible in a short amount of time.

At this point, you should put your canning jars (washed) into the oven at about 210°F.  This, in effect, sterilizes them, especially when you spoon boiling jam into them.  Beats the hell out of boiling, and frees up a burner on the stove.  Everyone wins.

Get it up to boiling and then let simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally in the beginning, increasing that to “constantly” as the time gets short, to keep the mixture from sticking.  As the mixture is cooking, taste occasionally to make sure things are going in the desired direction, flavor-wise.  I began this recipe with only 6 oz. of sugar and 2 Tbsp. of lime juice, but during the cooking process, it became clear that the jam was on its way to being (a) sour and (b) muddy-tasting.  Two more ounces of sugar (or “two small handsful,” more like) and 1/2 Tbsp. more lime juice turned the thing around.

As the 20-minute mark approaches, the mixture should thicken and the bubbles will become more (for want of a better term) crackly– smaller, sounding like crinkling plastic.  At this point, once the excess water has boiled off (not pooling on the surface), turn off the burner and immediately get your jars out of the oven.

Now comes the key step in preserving, in which will prevent later bouts of food poisoning (or just icky jam).  Set out the jars, lids, and a scoop or measuring cup to fill the jars.  While the jars and jam are hot, fill the jar to within 1/4-1/8″ of the top.  Wipe off the rim with a clean cloth, then screw the lid onto the jar.  Let it rest, filling up the rest of the jars exactly the same way (less air means less spoilage, I’m told).  Let it sit to cool, and the jars will vacuum-seal on their own, indicated by occasional pops over the next couple of hours.

This recipe yielded three 8-oz. jars of jam.  One was given to my coworker, for her trouble.  One has been devoured already.  The last is going to make the dark dark days of December just a little bit brighter.

My taste tester gave this one a rave review.  I would say that the skins did clump up a bit in the final product.  They definitely had a presence, though small.  Unfortunately, so much flavor resides in the skin that I would not want to peel the peaches before preserving them; besides, cutting up four pounds of peaches is plenty of work already.  The two kinds of ginger add some warmth to the jam, and the lime was a nice addition, although I think it would have been about the same with lemon.  The lime did not play a big role here.

And no fossil fuels were used in the transport of these peaches to my home.  Cannot say the same about any of the other ingredients, unfortunately, but it’s a start.

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