Imagine Carmen Miranda’s fruit filled hat. Then imagine preserving it.
That’s pretty much how it all started. There was a large display of champagne mangoes at Whole Foods. And beyond the mangoes, there was a cart, big and wooden, with a tent shaped roof. All the tropical fruits were displayed there. Coconuts, pomelo, small extremely sweet bananas, grapefruit, papaya, green skinned mangoes, melons of all sorts, blood oranges and Ugli fruit. It was like cruising the breakfast bar at Club Med.
In the 1940s, when bananas were the first mass market tropical fruit imported, the famous (ear-wormish) Chiquita banana song was aired to help people learn how to eat and keep bananas. Nowhere in this jingle is there anything about making preserves, but it’s still utterly charming.
This is the first year I even thought about exotic fruits and preserving and I have no idea why. The flavors just haven’t been in my preserving wheelhouse up to now. Perhaps it’s this odd weather and the non-winter and every single blooming thing in my yard in full color in one moment. It all has me thinking in the colors of papaya and melon, mango and limes. I’ve been craving fruit. This was inevitable.
These are fun flavors, very small batch jams, adapted from or inspired by Mme. Ferber, and exotics fruits are in stores now. In most cases, a small batch will be just enough. But the MaiTai preserves? Ai, carumba! as Carmen would say, I’ll be making another batch of that one soon.
The technique is essentially the same for each.
Mango Preserves
Makes 4 half pints
2.2 lbs. diced, peeled ripe mango (about nine champagne mangoes, or 5 lbs.)
3 cups sugar
Juice of one lemon
Macerate the fruit, sugar and lemon juice overnight.
Strain out the fruit and bring the syrup to 218°F in a heavy large pot. This will take about an hour.
Add the fruit to the syrup. Bring the jam back to a boil for about ten minutes, until the foam has cleared and the jam sheets off the spoon.
To clear the last of the foam, add about 1/2 tsp of butter, stir well.
Ladle the preserves into sterile jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace.
Process for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.
MaiTai Preserves
4 lbs., about 7, champagne mangoes
1 ripe papaya, about two pounds
6 ripe, juicy bright green limes
4 oz ginger confit or 1/2 c finely minced fresh ginger or 1/2 c finely minced candied ginger
4 c sugar
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp black pepper
Peel and dice the mangoes. Peel, seed and dice the papaya. Stir together in a large glass or ceramic bowl.
Remove the peel, not the pith, from the limes using a vegetable peeler. Add the peel and one cup of sugar to the food processor or blender and blitz the bejeezus out of it until the lime is distributed throughout the sugar. Take a whiff. It smells amazing. Add this sugar, and the remaining three cups, to the papaya and mango.
Juice the limes. Add the lime juice, ginger confit to the fruit mixture.
Crush the coriander and black pepper under the blade of your knife and add to the fruit. I tried toasting the spices, but prefered the flavor untoasted.
Cover with parchment, then plastic wrap, and refrigerate 8 to 24 hours.
Strain out the fruit and bring the syrup to a boil in a large, heavy bottomed pot. Raise the temperature slowly so the syrup doesn’t burn, this process will take about an hour. When the syrup is at 218°F, add the fruit, stir well, and continue to stir as the mixture comes back to a boil. You may need to tilt the pot so the syrup is deep enough to measure with a candy thermometer. (These are very small batches!)
It will take about ten minutes until the fruit and syrup combine. Stir stir stir. The bubbles will change, and the mixture will go from very foamy to bubbles that burst slowly to reveal clear preserves below. When the jam is ready, remove from the heat and stir in 1/4 tsp of butter, to remove the remaining bubbles.
Ladle into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace.
Process in a waterbath for 10 minutes.
Pineapple Rum Preserves
1 large, very ripe pineapple
3 c sugar (I used white, but half brown sugar would be wonderful)
1/4 c dark rum
1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
Juice of one lemon
To assess the ripeness of your pineapple, tug at the large leaf. It should pull away like an artichoke leaf, with a slight tug. Smell the pineapple. It should smell sweet and fruity. There should be no green, or very little, on the outside of the fruit. When ripe, they turn golden.
Hack off the top leaves and cut the bottom to make a flat surface. Using a large, sharp knife, slice away the outer roughness. Cut in half lengthwise, then in half, the long way, again. Remove the tough core and cut out any brown *eyes* on the outside. Now dice the fruit.
Stir the fruit, rum, vanilla and lemon juice together and allow this mixture to macerate overnight. Mme. Ferber suggests ceramic, but glass bowls are perfect. Cover with parchment, then plastic wrap, and refrigerate 8 to 24 hours.
Strain out the fruit and bring the syrup to a boil in a large, heavy bottomed pot. Raise the temperature slowly so the syrup doesn’t burn, this process will take about an hour. When the syrup is at 218°F, add the fruit, stir well, and continue to stir as the mixture comes back to a boil. You may need to tilt the pot so the syrup is deep enough to measure with a candy thermometer. (These are very small batches!)
It will take about ten minutes until the fruit and syrup combine. Stir stir stir. The bubbles will change, and the mixture will go from very foamy to bubbles that burst slowly to reveal clear preserves below. When the jam is ready, remove from the heat and stir in 1/4 tsp of butter, to remove the remaining bubbles.
Ladle into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace.
Process in a waterbath for 10 minutes.
Mango Banana Coulis with Grapefruit
4 lb. champagne mango, about 9
1 lb. small sweet bananas
1 ripe, juicy grapefruit
4 c sugar
Juice of one lemon
Dice the mango. Slice the bananas into 1/4″ rounds. Stir fruits together. Add the juice of the grapefruit and any pulp that squeezes out, too. [I wish I had thought to add 1/4 c minced, candied grapefruit peel, as well.]
Stir in the sugar and lemon juice.
Cover with parchment, then plastic wrap, and refrigerate 8 to 24 hours.
Strain out the fruit and bring the syrup to a boil in a large, heavy bottomed pot. Raise the temperature slowly so the syrup doesn’t burn, this process will take about an hour. When the syrup is at 218°F, add the fruit, stir well, and continue to stir as the mixture comes back to a boil. You may need to tilt the pot so the syrup is deep enough to measure with a candy thermometer. (These are very small batches!)
It will take about ten minutes until the fruit and syrup combine. Stir stir stir. The bubbles will change, and the mixture will go from very foamy to bubbles that burst slowly to reveal clear preserves below. When the jam is ready, remove from the heat and stir in 1/4 tsp of butter, to remove the remaining bubbles.
Ladle into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace.
Process in a waterbath for 10 minutes.
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