BLACK CURRANT JAM AND MARMALADE.
No fruit jellies so easily as black currants when they are ripe; and their juice is so rich and thick that it will bear the addition of a very small quantity of water sometimes, without causing the preserve to mould. When the currants have been very dusty, we have occasionally had them washed and drained before they were used, without any injurious effects. Jam boiled down in the usual manner with this fruit is often very dry. It may be greatly improved by taking out nearly half the currants when it is ready to be potted, pressing them well against the side of the preserving-pan to extract the juice: this leaves the remainder far more liquid and refreshing than when the skins are all retained. Another mode of making fine black currant jam—as well as that of any other fruit—is to add one pound at least of juice, extracted as for jelly, to two pounds of the berries, and to allow sugar for it in the same proportion as directed for each pound of them.
For marmalade or paste, which is most useful in affections of the 512throat and chest, the currants must be stewed tender in their own juice, and then rubbed through a sieve. After ten minutes’ boiling, sugar in fine powder must be stirred gradually to the pulp, off the fire, until it is dissolved: a few minutes more of boiling will then suffice to render the preserve thick, and it will become quite firm when cold. More or less sugar can be added to the taste, but it is not generally liked very sweet.
Best black currant jam.—Currants, 4 lbs.; juice of currants, 2 lbs.: 15 to 20 minutes’ gentle boiling. Sugar, 3 to 4 lbs.: 10 minutes. Marmalade, or paste of black currants.—Fruit, 4 lbs.: stewed in its own juice 15 minutes, or until quite soft. Pulp boiled 10 minutes. Sugar, from 7 to 9 oz. to the lb.: 10 to 14 minutes.
Obs.—The following are the receipts originally inserted in this work, and which we leave unaltered.
To six pounds of the fruit, stripped carefully from the stalks, add four pounds and a half of sugar. Let them heat gently, but as soon as the sugar is dissolved boil the preserve rapidly for fifteen minutes. A more common kind of jam may be made by boiling the fruit by itself from ten to fifteen minutes, and for ten minutes after half its weight of sugar has been added to it.
Black currants, 6 lbs.; sugar, 4-1/2 lbs.: 15 minutes. Or: fruit, 6 lbs.: 10 to 15 minutes. Sugar, 3 lbs.: 10 minutes.
Obs.—There are few preparations of fruit so refreshing and so useful in illness as those of black currants, and it is therefore advisable always to have a store of them, and to have them well and carefully made.