jam sesh

melissa and i went strawberry picking at jones family farm (awfully slick website for a farm, no?) a few weeks ago, at the peak of strawberry season (we're told it came a few weeks early this year). wooh boy, we each left with around nine pounds of strawberries in tow.
i had big plans for mine, but wound up eating, i don't know, four pounds of them spooned into bowls of lightly sweetened whipped cream, or just plain. another three pounds went into the jam i'm about to tell you about, and the rest are currently squirreled away in my freezer, waiting to be turned into cobbler. soon.

i've made plenty of quick jams and compotes, served over bowls of ice cream for dessert or with pancakes for breakfast, but never with a big pot and properly sealed jars that you can stash away for later or give to friends. it's surprisingly easy and you don't need any fancy equipment: you just toss your fruit in sugar and lemon and let the whole thing hang out a little while you sterilize the bejeezus out of your jars. then you cook your fruit down, skimming foam off the top, and when it's done you ladle it into your (very, very clean) jars, close them up, and boil them to vacuum seal them. cool! science! and then you can stick them in your pantry and forget about them for a few months, or until winter rolls around and you want some fruit that doesn't suck.
because that's what i really noticed when eating this jam--it's a seriously punchy strawberry taste. i normally like raspberry or blackberry jam over strawberry because i don't think it tends to taste like much other than sugar, but not so when you make it at home with good quality berries (hard, bland, white-shouldered winter fruit will simply not work here). it's like eating fresh strawberries, but condensed, amplified.

i made two different types of jam, one with ginger stirred in at the end and one with chopped basil. both were wonderful in their own right, but i can completely get behind leaving your jam plain to let your fruit speak for itself (or stirring in some lemon zest right before you seal your jars, just to round off that sugary edge a little). melissa and i both reduced the sugar in a big way from the original recipe and agreed we wouldn't have wanted it any sweeter, so that might mean we had unusually sweet fruit. be sure to adjust depending on what you're working with. blackberries, should you be so lucky, will certainly need more.

in addition to cutting out sugar, i scaled the recipe up a good deal and fiddled with the cooking time, as my jam was runnier than i would have preferred, but the original proportions can be found here, if you'd like them.
strawberry jam
adapted from orangette
yields three 12oz jars, or five 8oz jars (i would recommend the smaller jars, if available)

• 3 lbs fresh strawberries, hulled and cut into chunks
• ½ pound granulated sugar (originally calls for a whole pound, adjust as necessary for your fruit)
• juice of one lemon (and zest, if you like)
• optional: grated ginger, chopped fresh basil or mint (roughly a heaping tablespoon per jar), or a few grinds of black pepper

combine the fruit, sugar, and lemon juice in a large pot or dutch oven, and let macerate at room temperature for two hours, stirring occasionally.

while the fruit is resting, prepare the jars. preheat the oven to 225°F, and wash your jam jars--you need the type with two-part sealable lids, a flat disk and a ring--under hot, soapy water. place the jars—but not the lids—in the oven. wash the lids under hot, soapy water, and place them on a clean dish towel to dry. the jars will need to stay in the oven for at least 20 minutes. stick a saucer in the freezer.

place the pot containing the fruit over medium-high heat, and bring the mixture to a boil. boil the jam for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. as it cooks, the jam will give off a pale-colored foam that will rise to the surface. use a wooden spoon or a strainer to skim off as much of the foam as possible (and save it, if you like; it’s wonderful with plain yogurt). if you leave the foam in the pot, your finished jam will be cloudy.

after 30 minutes, remove the saucer from the freezer and place a drop of jam onto it. after a few seconds, push it with your finger. if the surface wrinkles then the jam is ready, but if it's still sliding around like a liquid then you need to continue boiling it for a few minutes so it can thicken up more.

remove the pot from the heat. using tongs, remove each jar from the oven, and using a ladle to scoop the hot jam from the pot, fill the jars to within ¼" of the top. if you want to use basil, mint, pepper, zest or ginger, now is a good time to stir it in--i like to do each jar individually so i can have different flavorings from the same batch, so i mixed about a tablespoon of grated ginger into one jar, a heaping tablespoon of finely chopped basil into another, and gave them a vigorous stir.

wipe off the rims of the jars with a clean, dry paper towel to remove any errant drips. place the lids on top of the jars, and screw them down finger-tight (firmly, but not too tight). a batch of jam should fill anywhere between 4 and 6 8 oz jars, depending on the fruit, water content, etc.

fill a large, deep pot with water, and bring it to a boil; it should be large enough to hold all of the jam jars, and the water will need to be deep enough to reach up to half an inch below their rims, or higher. when the water is boiling, use tongs to carefully place each of the jars, standing upright, in the boiling pot. boil for 15 minutes; then turn off the heat. allow to sit for a minute; then remove the jars with the tongs and allow them to cool completely upside down on a dish towel. when they are cool, press each lid lightly to make sure it has sucked down and sealed (i.e. you don't want the lid to pop down when you press it). if necessary, tighten the lids. store in a cool, dry place.

important: this jarring method (boiling the jars then closing them tightly and letting them cool upside down) is one that's been commonly practiced in france for generations and generations and is very reliable. however, using a sterilizing machine, a canner and rubber-lidded jars is the only way to be absolutely safe. for more information on home-canning, see this site.breakfast nirvana: strawberry ginger jam on toasted pecan bread with a little bit of mascarpone. (slightly redundant) berries and greek yogurt on the side. not that you'll even need bread, for that matter, as this jam is perfectly happy to be eaten straight outta the jar with a spoon and some stealth.