After writing yesterday’s recipe for bramble jelly, I started thinking about other fruit that is coming into season, especially foraged fruit.
An excellent, quick setting jelly can be made from crabapples which you can pick up by the bucket load in parks. They are sometimes yellow, sometimes pink and make a beautifully coloured preserve. Cook them down in enough water to cover them, and carry on as the basic recipe from yesterday - you don’t need extra pectin to set them.
If you let it cool for 10 minutes or so before putting it into the jars, you can add some chopped fresh herbs - the cooling means the jelly begins to thicken and stops them floating to the top. The jars in the picture are from a batch a couple of years ago and have sage in them but you could use mint, parsley or rosemary. It makes an excellent accompaniment to all kinds of savoury dishes - I put it on nut roast because I don’t eat meat, but I’m told it’s good on roast pork or chicken.
For a rather different jelly, add some chopped red chillies to the boiling pan for a couple of minutes after it’s reached setting point - again, let it cool a little and stir before bottling so the chillies don’t float to the top.
