Rhubarb, Orange & Prosecco Jam

Well, it's been several months sinced i last posted, but it's time to get back into the kitchen & feed the houseboy up for winter. The summer has been filled with weddings (including our own wonderful day) an amazing Italian honeymoon, parties, hen do's & weekends away which have all been brilliant fun, but it's secretly quite nice now it's all calming down.

 

This time of year is great for jam making & due to our amazing (& very surprising) British summer there is an abundance of deliciously ripe fruit available. This is a recipe from a Jam & Preserves book i've had a while but never used - the recipe actaully calls for plain old boring water, but i thought i would liven it & add some prosecco & it works very well. The ginger isn't too overpowering & the orange really enhances the flavour of the rhubarb. It's quite a sweet jam (more so than say a raspberry jam) so would work well with desserts like greek yoghurt.

 

Ingredients:

• 1.5 kilos of rhubarb
• 50g of fresh root ginger
• pared rind and juice of two oranges
• two lemons
• two pints of prosecco (its just shy of a bottle - top up with a little water)
• 1.75 kilos of sugar
• 15g butter

Method:

 

Slice the rhubarb & add two thirds to a large heavy based saucepan. Finely grate the fresh ginger, zest & juice the oranges & juice the lemons. Add these to the rhubarb along with the prosecco and the two half's of lemon shell (the pectin in the lemon helps set the jam). Bring the mixture to the boil & simmer for around 45 minutes to an hour with the lid off so the fruit has reduce by about half. Allow to cool & remove the lemon shells. Add the remaining rhubarb & gently simmer for about 5 minutes until the fruit is soft. Gradually stir in the sugar over a low heat until fully dissolved, bring to the boil and reduce to a gentle simmer until it reaches setting point. Take off the heat, stir in the butter and skim the scum off the top. Pour into clean and warmed jam jars, top each with a disc of waxed paper & allow to cool completely before screwing on lids.

 

The Wedding Day