Last week, we went visiting in Boston, and while our friend nursed her baby under a perfectly blue sky, Baby Yub Yub and I collected dandelions in the field. It was an idyllic moment. Our hands were left bitter tasting and colored yellow, but we had a bag full of dandelion flowers.
Back home, I carefully separated the flower petals from all the green parts. This was easy but time consuming—and the baby was very helpful—carefully placing her own flower heads in a Tupperware bowl and stirring them with a spoon. I was on a mission. Making jam is one of my passions, and as soon as I saw a recipe for dandelion marmalade, I got excited.
The following recipe is my own:
3 oranges
1 lemon
1 cup dandelion flowers—no green parts
½ box suregel, lower suger recipe
2 ½ cups sugar
1 ¼ cups water
Peel oranges and lemon. Chop peel into tiny pieces. Combine with water in a pot. Bring to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes.
Peel and discard the rest of the white rind.
Chop oranges and lemon into small chunks. Add to rind. Cook 12 minutes.
Mix suregel and ½ cup sugar.
Add sugar/suregel mixture and dandelion flowers to citrus. Cook until boiling. Stir often.
Add sugar. Stir constantly. Return to full boil. Boil 1 minute, stirring the whole time.
Ladle into hot sterilized jars. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes.
This recipe is a 5!
Hey! I met you guys at the Wild foods Fest today in Putney and thought that I would check out your blog. Very cool. Have you ever tried Pomona's Pectin for your jam? It is a citrus pectin and you can use honey or other sweeteners for your jams. Wild blueberry jam made with honey is the nectar of the local, wild gods!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pomonapectin.com/
best,
Julie
(I was working the Oyase table)
Yes! I love Pomona's and it works beautifully. (I have a Honey Peach Jam I make with it that is out of this world.) In this recipe, I was melding a few recipes I'd reviewed and went with the Suregel, but I would really like to try it with honey and Pomona's. I also want to try to increase the amount of dandelion flowers, but wonder what that would do to the texture. I increased them by 1/2 cup in the dandelion muffin recipe last night and loved it. Let me know more about your jam experiments!
ReplyDeleteI made dandelion cookies last week and I was not impressed, but I look forward to trying dandelion jelly this week.
ReplyDeleteYou would probably enjoy the 'River cottage' website they have some very good recipes a lot like yours.
ReplyDeleteThanks Blue,
DeleteThis looks like a cool site for anyone interested in local foods.
I'm confused by the directions to "Peel and discard the rest of the white rind.
ReplyDeleteChop oranges and lemon into small chunks. Add to rind. Cook 12 minutes." I've never done this before and I want to do it the correct way.
Loved reading this thhank you
ReplyDelete