Traditional home made pear jam 8Comments
Making pear jam is one of those things that brings me and Marika to our childhood, when we were preparing it with our Grandmother: not only the smell in the house while we prepare it, but also the taste when we spread the delicious on a piece of warm bread.
I and Marika belong to the very traditional school when we come to making preserves. We don’t use any pectin nor any water!
We know that the pectin would reduce the time to prepare our jam. But we really don’t care: you need time and patience if you want an excellent result. We want to know that anything else goes into our pear jam but organic pears (from our father’s garden) and sugar. You may also use honey, which is the ancient Roman way of preparing jams.
The key when you make your fruit preserve is the quantity of sugar you use.
Sugar is one of those ingredients (along with salt and vinegar) which have very important properties in preserving food. Sugar helps to preserve food by lowering the water activity, so preventing the growth of bacteria and fostering the microbiological stability of the product.
The quantity of sugar depends on the fruit you are using (which can have more or less sugar content). In general you need a minimum of 600 – 650 grams of sugar per each kg of fruit, if you want to store your jam for up to one year.
We totally agree with Christine Ferber: the secret for a very good jam is the quality of the fruit you are using. Therefore, our pears need to be of very high quality and not too ripe!
We also like to keep the skin of our pears, because of their high quantity of vitamins.
RECIPE
servings: about 20 little jars
Ingredients:
4 kg pears
2,5 kg sugar
Preparation:
Cut the pears in small pieces, add the sugar and start cooking in a very big and tall steel pan. Cover with a lid and stir very often with a wooden spoon, so that the compound does not stick or burn.
Once the pears start boiling, reduce the flame to the minimum, cover and keep cooking. Stir very frequently. Cook at very low flame for at least 1 hour and half or until when the preserve reaches the right consistency.
To check the consistency, put a few drops of jam in a glass with some cold water. If the jam drops fall down to the bottom without melting, it means the jam is ready.
Our recipe is to keep some small pieces of pears, therefore we don’t pass it through a food processor.
In the meantime, sterilize the glass jars and lids in boiling water for about 10 minutes. Let the jars cool down. Fill them when the pear jam is still very warm and within ½ inch of the top! Close the jars very well.
Our Grandmother’s method is to keep the jears upside down for about 5 minutes.
I and Marika like to be super safe so we boil the jars again for about 40 minutes at low flame. Then, place the jars in a warm place and cover with a blanket so that they don’t break.
What is your favorite jam?
For more info please email at: info@stilemediterraneo.it
Sangeeta: come and visit us in Puglia! We are just back from an amazing wine tours and we have lots of new wine bottles to share with good friends! BTW I love your mango loaf!
hey ..spending good time with cheese and wine………i wanna join you there…….see my mango loaf at my blog….and sorry dear for being a bit late to post it.
Tim: nice to hear you are busy writing!
BTW: tonight we tried the pear jam with a two week old artisan pecorino cheese (sheep cheese)…It was soooo good. And of course we accompanied them with a very good bottle of wine: tonight we had a fantastic Primitivo di Manduria wine! what a nice ending of our day!
nom nom nom!
Jams are great
Sorry for the lack of comments lately
Life in the writing world has been busy!
Please please! send us the mango loaf recipe! we love mangoes…even though in Italy they will be imported…
oh i was wrong on that one…it’s 600 gms for 1000 gms of food….i had read it in a food preservation book long ago………the ratio i stated earlier would result in crystallization of the sugars.lolz…..
even 600 gm is more than your recipe….may be they prescribed it keeping in mind,the indian weather n humidity levels…….
your garden fresh peaches look picture perfect.
as for my recipe….i told you i do not measure n have got a practice to do it instinctively n it’s not too sweet n sometimes i make small amounts of fruit jams for instant consumption.
and after reading your durum wheat semolina , i made a mango loaf which turned out superb.
Sangeeta: in order to prevent botulism risks, the sugar content needs to be 50% of the fruit content (i.e. 500 grams of sugar for 1000 grams of fruit). It is confirmed by this medical article (which unfortunately is in Italian)http://www.ceirsa.org/botulismoalimentare.htm.
However, please consider that sugar content may also vary depending on the fruit you are using.
The pears we used in this recipe are very sweet and do not require too much sugar(same thing if we were making fig jam). Other fruits require more sugar.
Also, sugar content depends on personal taste and we prefer not too sweet jams.
However, we expect your recipe to be good to accompany very old cheeses….so we will definetely try it!
very good recipe of a chunky jam with skin…….i liked it……….even i use the same method to make my preserves n now i’ll try to keep the skin too…..
upto my knowledge the sugar content in a jam should be 60% W/W , that means 600 gm of sugar for 400 gm fruit…is that right? please correct me if it’s wrong……..as for me i make small quantities of jam with instinctive measurements.
and i like pineapple jam, homemade with all it’s fiber.