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Summer is not only the warmest season, but also the most delicious. It is in the summer that our gardens and orchards are filled with fresh vegetables, fruits and berries. But summer passes quickly, and with it this gastronomic wealth goes away. Therefore, many of us, even in the summer, in the midst of the berry and vegetable season, try to close as many cans as possible for the winter. In this article, we will tell you how to make a favorite treat of many - strawberry jam.
The subtleties of cooking strawberry jam
Strawberry or, as it is also called, garden strawberry is a very tasty, but very capricious berry. To make strawberry jam and not be disappointed with the end result, you need to carefully choose the berries. Beautiful and incredibly tasty strawberry jam will work only if the berries meet the following criteria:
- They must be ripe. Unripe berries do not yet have a special berry aroma, so the jam from them will turn out to be tasteless. But too overripe berries will fall apart during the cooking process, so they can only be used for jam.
- To make strawberry jam, you should choose berries of the same size. This is due to the fact that berries of different sizes have different cooking times.
But it's not enough just to make strawberry jam, you still need to keep all the benefits of berries in it. Jam boiling involves heat treatment, during which many vitamins are lost. And then a logical question arises: "So how much to cook strawberry jam so that it retains its benefits?" It all depends on the specific recipe taken, but the longer the berries are boiled, the less useful vitamins remain in them. To avoid this unnecessary loss of the lion's share of vitamins, preliminary filling the berries with sugar will help. The juice extracted from strawberries in a few hours will help speed up the cooking of the jam, which means it will retain more nutrients.
Before cooking strawberry jam, you need to take care of the container in which it will be closed. For this, only glass jars are used, which must be pre-washed and sterilized. There are quite a lot of sterilization methods and any of them can be used with equal success. But if time is running out, then it is best to use a quick method of sterilization. They will tell you more about it in the video:
Now that all the subtleties have been considered, let's talk about how to make strawberry jam.
The classic strawberry jam recipe
To make strawberry jam according to this recipe, we need a minimum set of ingredients:
- a kilogram of berries;
- kilogram of sugar.
Anyone who loves strawberry flavor more can take strawberries instead of strawberries.
Before boiling strawberry jam, all the berries must be sorted out and cleaned of tails and leaves. After that, they should be rinsed under a weak stream of water and dried a little.
Now the prepared berries must be covered with sugar and left for a day to extract juice. The more juice the berry gives, the tastier the jam will be. At the end of the specified time, sugar should not be visible at the bottom of the container; it should completely dissolve in the released juice. Now you can start cooking.
To do this, pour the berries together with the juice into an enamel bowl and bring to a boil over medium heat. When the mass boils, the heat should be reduced and boiling should be continued for 5 minutes. After that, the fire must be turned off, and the jam must be cooled and left to infuse for 24 hours. After this time, the cooking procedure should be repeated. In this case, the second time it is necessary to remove the resulting foam from the almost finished strawberry delicacy.
The boiled jam must be poured into the jars while still hot and closed with lids. After the jars with the treats have cooled, they can be stored in a cool place.
Strawberry five minutes
Strawberry jam, the recipe for which we will consider below, cooks extremely quickly. The answer to the question: "How much jam to cook according to this recipe" is hidden in its name. The entire cooking process will not last longer than 5 minutes, which means that the beneficial substances in such a delicacy will be preserved.
For cooking you will need:
- a kilogram of strawberries;
- a kilogram of sugar;
- a tablespoon of lemon juice.
An unsightly berry is also quite suitable. When the delicacy is cooked, it will still not be visible.
The berries, as always, must be peeled and rinsed. Now they need to be cut in half. This is done so that in 5 minutes of cooking they are able to completely boil. After that, they must be covered with sugar and left for several hours to extract juice.
When the juice from the berries is released, you can start preparing the treat. The stove should be put on low heat and cook the strawberries with sugar for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. During the cooking process, it will be seen that the berries will begin to secrete more juice, while forming a foam. It is recommended to remove it only with a wooden spoon or spatula.
At the end of cooking, add lemon juice and turn off the stove. Now all that remains is to pour the finished delicacy into pre-sterilized jars and close them with lids. Until the jam has cooled completely, it should be turned upside down.
Jam with whole strawberries
As you can see in the photo below, the jam made according to this recipe is distinguished by its not only good, but excellent appearance. The berries seemed to have left the garden and lay down to rest in sweet syrup.
To prepare it you need:
- 3 kilograms of strawberries;
- 2 kilograms of sugar.
The process of making such a jam is not very different from the other recipes discussed. But due to the fact that we need to preserve the integral structure of the berries, we must handle them very carefully during cooking.
The berries must, as always, be peeled, rinsed and dried, while being careful not to crush or damage their shape. After that, the berries must be placed in a deep enamel container and covered with sugar. In this form, they should stand for 6 hours.
When 6 hours have passed, you can start cooking. Berries with juice should be brought to a boil over medium heat, periodically skimming them off.
Cooking takes place in 3 stages:
- When the mass boils, you need to add 400 grams of sugar and reduce the heat. After that, cooking continues for 10 minutes. Then, the jam is removed from the stove and infused for 10 hours.
- The second time the jam should also boil, but add 300 grams of sugar to it. The infusion time is the same - 10 hours.
- All the remaining sugar is added to the final cooking, but the almost finished delicacy should boil for no more than 5 minutes.
It should be poured into cans while still hot, and stored after cooling in a dark and cool place.
These simple recipes are suitable even for novice cooks. The main thing is not to exceed the recommended cooking time and believe in yourself.
