Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Wild Strawberry Jam/ Walderdbeer-Marmelade



Last weekend I made wild strawberry jam. And that jam has a long history. Here ist is:

I live in a 1930's multi-family-house with a garden. And both the house and the garden have been neglected pretty much since the 1930's.
Usually I mow the garden to keep it a little bit less wild. But this year I was so busy I had no time for anything but work. And in my garden wild strawberries started growing all over the „lawn“.



I've loved wild strawberries since I was a kid and I knew I wanted to do something with them. And I remembered that when I was about 10 years old a friend of mine had told me about a glass of wild strawberry jam her family had made. And she had raved so much about it I still remember it now, nearly 20 years later.

So wild strawberry jam it was! I decided to combine them with regular strawberries because wild strawberries are very very small and it takes forever to pick even a handful of them. I collected a few strawberries every day and added them to a freezer bag. Then I got very busy again and strawberry season was probably long over (I guess?) when I remembered that bag of berries in my freezer.

So last weekend I hurried to the market and bought a box of strawberries and a package of jam sugar. And I started making the first jam of my life. Freestyle jam, only with the help of the sugar package instructions and what I remembered from watching my mum make jam.


I cleaned some empty jars thoroughly and filled them with hot water. Then I took the frozen wild strawberries out of the freezer.
I cleaned and halved about the same amount of strawberries, weighed all berries and added them to a pot with the correct amount of jam sugar. (Depending on the sugar there is a different fruit/sugar ratio – in my case that was 2:1, 600g of berries and 300g of sugar.).


At that point I realized I should have pureed the strawberries before adding the sugar. But I just waited until the heat had softened everything a bit and then pureed everything with my hand blender.


After my puree started bubbling I let it cook for 4 minutes and then ladled it into my now „sterilized“ jars. Which I closed quickly and then turned upside down – something I think I remember my mum doing but I'm not sure... I guess it didn't hurt anyways.

And voilĂ ! Four glasses of upside-down freestyle wild strawberry jam!



So: Don't mow your garden and life will give you strawberries!