Pineapple and Mango Jam Recipe (video)

Everyone has childhood memories associated with food whether it be of family meals, picnics, festive season meals, camping or simply the special weekend breakfast.

Making jam triggers warm emotions and sweet memories of the courtyard of my grandmother’s mamlouki home (a beautiful home built in the late 1500s in the old quarters of Damascus) where we spent happy summers preparing mouneh.

Mouneh was an important activity for the women of the household during the summer months in Damascus. Mouneh is the preservation of foods for use in winter whether using the drying, pickling, jamming or canning method.

Preparing for mouneh was a very social event where female relatives and neighbors would gather together and help sort, clean, cut, wash or stir pots of goodness, ready for preservation. Time would pass quickly and the workload was light as the ladies would tell stories, jokes, share their problems or just partake in some harmless gossip.

Families took turns in preparing mouneh and the ladies went from house to house until all the homes of the participants were prepared for the winter months to come. With team work, the hard work became fun work.

I miss those days and long to have them back but I live with the warm memories, the stories that were shared and the echo of the ladies’ laughter.

In Syria, almost everything is jammed including baby eggplant!!! YES and it is DELICIOUS.

This is jam that you do not often find in the stores but which is perfect for the festive season.

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Yield: ½ liter jar

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 large ripe mango
• ½ ripe pineapple
• 40 ml lemon juice
• 500 grams sugar
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 2 star anise

METHOD:

• Peel the fruits and cut them into 1 cm cubes. Make sure to discard any brown spotting.
• Put the fruits and sugar in a pot and place it on a medium heat. Then add the, lemon zest, lemon juice and star anise.
• When the mixture reaches the boil, lower the heat and leave it to simmer for around 30 minutes or until the jam has reached its setting point. Make sure you remove the scum which rises to the surface (impurities from the fruits and sugar) with a wooden spoon.
• To judge whether the jam is at setting point, just pour a spoonful on a cold plate and place it in the freezer for about half a minute or so. Remove it and run your finger through the middle; if it creates a wrinkle effect then it is ready for pouring.
• Whilst the jam is still hot, pour it into sterilized jars making sure you fill the jars to the brim. Wipe any spillage off the rim of the jar and seal tightly.
• Turn the jar upside down for 2 minutes. Store in the fridge once cooled or in a dry cool place for several months.

 

TIPS:

• •An easy way to remember proportions is to use a ratio of 1:1 fruit to sugar.
• •Fruits that are naturally low in pectin need lemon juice added or you can opt to add the commercial pectin.
• •Mixing high pectin fruit with lower pectin fruits works really well. Fruits high in pectin are apples, pears, gooseberries, citrus, quince, plums and cranberries, whilst peaches, apricots, blueberries, pineapple and cherries are low in pectin.
• By adding star anise, the flavor is lifted to another level.

Per Serving: 2196 Calories; 2g Fat (0.6% calories from fat); 2g Protein; 567g Carbohydrate; 8g Dietary Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; 12mg Sodium

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