The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook

Rachel Saunders

• Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780740791437
• eBook ISBN: 9781449401986
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Culinary Arts

A comprehensive, year-round guide to jellies, jams, conserves, preserves, and marmalades, featuring over 100 recipes.
If you love to cook, are crazy for fruit, or have even a passing interest in jam or marmalade, Rachel Saunders's James Beard Award–nominated Blue Chair Jam Cookbook is the book for you. Rachel's legendary Bay Area jam company, Blue Chair Fruit, earned instant fame for its intensely flavored preserves when it launched in 2008. Rachel's passion for fruit shines through every part of this lavishly illustrated book, which is the culmination of nearly ten years of research. The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook is the essential jam and marmalade book of the twenty-first century, one in which Rachel's modern yet nostalgic vision of cooking takes center stage.
Rachel offers an in-depth exploration of individual fruits, a comprehensive technical section, and nearly 120 original recipes organized around the seasons. In offerings ranging from Plum Jam to Strawberry–Blood Orange Marmalade with Rosemary and Black Fig and Candied Citrus Jam, she vividly captures the joyful essence of fruit and of the preserving process.
The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook is not only an exciting and vibrant exploration of fruit and of the seasons, but also one of the few books that clearly explains and illustrates preserving techniques. Each recipes includes clear and detailed directions to help ensure success, and Rachel explores a wide range of technical questions as they relate to individual fruits and types of preserves. Whether you make jam or marmalade once a year or every week, and whether you are a home or professional cook, The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook is sure to claim a special place in your cookbook library.
Praise for The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook
"A complete and exquisite guide to making jam and marmalade at home. In addition to sharing 100+ recipes, Saunders walks you step-by-step through the process with in-depth explanations as well as photos of the various steps so you see exactly what each phase looks like." — Epicurious
" Blue Chair could well become the jam maker's quintessential reference book." —SFGate.com
"Rachel Saunders . . . is quite possibly the high priestess of jam making. [ The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook] . . . belongs in the kitchen of anyone interested in keeping their pantry stocked with delicious and unique fruit preserves. And Rachel's instructions are so thorough and clear, even beginners are assured success." —The Splendid Table's "Weeknight Kitchen" newsletter

part I introduction

THE ROOTS OF BLUE CHAIR FRUIT

The kitchen has always been my favorite room in the house and the market my favorite place outside. Some of my earliest memories revolve around food: strawberry picking; churning mocha ice cream on our back porch; making butter in the blender; and my favorite of all, the smell of fresh tomatoes in the yard. My mother taught me basic cooking when I was young and then set me free in the kitchen, where I eagerly began exploring. I started dreaming of California after receiving a San Francisco cookbook for Christmas one year. It was largely this book, which spoke of fruits I had never tasted and spices I had never heard of, that taught me to cook, always with my parents’ encouragement.

I studied French and art in college, spending a year and a half in France and Tuscany by my early twenties. France was a delight: Meals were ritualized and structured, food was beautiful and fresh, and sweet things were always just sweet enough. The markets were awash with perfect, luscious fruit, much of which I had never seen before.

I moved to San Francisco upon receiving my degree, and shortly thereafter began working with food. I spent my off hours browsing at farmers’ markets and reading cookbooks, always striving to learn more. The sheer numbers and beauty of the fruits available dazzled me. I tried to cook as many desserts as I could, but I found myself practically drowning in my creations. I couldn’t possibly hope to eat them all! It was then that I decided to try my hand at jams.

My first batch of jam came from an excellent dessert cookbook, and it turned out well, but it was not exactly what I had envisioned. It was at that moment that I became hooked on jam making. Several years of intense experimentation ensued. I slaved away in my tiny kitchen, gradually developing my own techniques in my quest for perfect results. Over time, I grew to understand fruit. I also, through the course of these several years, formed my own vision of what the ideal textures were for different jams and marmalades.

After nearly a decade of work, I had finally reached the point where I felt I could create any jam or marmalade I desired. And my company, Blue Chair Fruit, was born.

For me, blue chair represents the nostalgic kitchen, brimming with comforting warmth and enticing smells and tastes. It is a natural extension of the farm and garden, a dynamic playground where there is always something new and delicious in season and where we can let our imaginations run wild. Above all, it is an idea of cooking—one in which inspiration is everywhere, waiting to be found. Aside from all the hard work involved in jam making, it is the sheer fun of it, and its rich rewards and sense of adventure, that inspired these pages. Few things match the satisfaction of gazing at a row of sparkling, brightly colored jars, just waiting to be shared with your family and friends, or the anticipation of trying that next idea or picking that next fruit from your backyard tree.

Turn to the preserving section of a midcentury cookbook and you will likely find recipes for a few simple preserves, perhaps one or two with a couple of interesting herbs or spices thrown in. You might be astonished by the extremely high quantity of sugar called for. And, once you select a recipe and begin making jam, the lack of clear directions may also amaze you. Something—you tell yourself after you have devoted a few hours, been splattered with blackberry juice, and are looking at a pile of dirty dishes and a few jars of leathery preserves—something was missing, but I’m just not sure what!

Preserving transforms raw ingredients—fruit, sugar, lemon—as much or as little as the individual cook desires. It is up to you, the jam maker, to determine the eventual texture, appearance, flavor, consistency, and complexity of each individual preserve. To do this with confidence, it is invaluable to have a clear understanding of both the technical and aesthetic possibilities of preserving.

The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook is a distillation of all I have learned about fruit in the past ten years. The recipes here represent my favorite ideas and techniques from each season. Every year, I make different jams and marmalades than the year before, because new ideas come to me all the time. The possibilities are endless and, once you have acquired the taste, it becomes difficult to resist making jam when the opportunity presents itself. Strawberries are an excellent example. This seemingly ordinary fruit can be transformed not only into delicious plain jam but also into something truly extraordinary: combined with a whole host of other flavors, made into jelly, even incorporated into a marmalade. I am not a traditionalist when it comes to preserving, but I am a stickler for texture, balance, and appearance. The essential question is, does a preserve taste and look great? The answer to this question should always be yes.

Once you begin to explore the entire range of herbs, spices, spirits, liqueurs, and even extracts available, a whole new world reveals itself: One in which not merely a fruit but also a certain flavor that may seem to belong with that fruit may excite and inspire you. As you read through these pages, you will see preserves ranging from the most basic to the most complex, along with many suggestions for variations. I hope this approach will help you have fun making something exquisite, something more than the sum of its parts. And this, in a broader sense, is the joy of preserving and of cooking in general.

This book is about fruit, but in a very special context. Unlike fruit desserts, jams and marmalades are rarely eaten alone. Flavorless jam simply tastes sugary, and its personality fades away next to a slice of bread and butter or a cup of yogurt. Thus, using the absolute best fruit you can find is essential. The best fruit is what grows in your own backyard. My devotion to fresh, seasonal, local fruit informs every word of this book.

Great preserves stand out for their perfect balance of flavor, texture, and appearance. How do you achieve this balance? When making a jam or marmalade, even if you are following a preexisting recipe, nothing is more helpful or inspiring than understanding how to put your ideals into practice. Each batch of jam you make will differ slightly from the one that came before. Thus, a clear understanding of fruit, and of how it acts when cooked, will help you through the adventure of preserving.

chapter 1

JAMS, JELLIES & MARMALADES: GETTING THE MOST OUT OF FRUIT

DEFINING JAMS, JELLIES, MARMALADES & THEIR KIN

Although we have all tasted jams, jellies, and marmalades at one time or another, the question I am most often asked is simply: What is the difference between these three major types of preserves? The answer has nothing to do with the ingredients, although the one essential ingredient for all preserves is fruit. Instead, it concerns both the techniques used to prepare and cook the fruit and the texture of the resulting preserve. A jam is a fruit preserve consisting of pieces of fruit cooked with sugar until they thicken and partially break down. A jelly is an extracted fruit juice that has been combined with sugar, lemon juice, and (sometimes) added pectin and boiled until it sets. A marmalade is a jelly with clearly defined pieces of fruit suspended in it. Two other related types of preserves, butters and cheeses (or pastes), also exist. A fruit butter is a sweetened fruit puree cooked very slowly for a long time over low heat, generally resulting in a smoother texture than that of most jams. A fruit cheese or paste is a high-pectin fruit butter cooked until it has thickened and lost enough moisture to form a solid mass when cool.

Though they all begin with fruit, each type of preserve achieves its flavor differently. Both jams and marmalades have an intense taste, but they arrive at it in opposite ways. Good jams are cooked as quickly as possible with as little sugar as possible, so as best to capture the essence of the raw fruit; the idea is to take the fruit to its highest pinnacle of flavor and then immediately stop the cooking. Jellies and marmalades take the opposite approach, achieving their strength through concentration. A good jelly or marmalade, instead of quickly “flash-cooking” its ingredients, cooks them slowly over a very long period of time (with marmalade, often days) in order to draw out every last drop of flavor and pectin from the fruit. Jellies and marmalades, while they taste intensely of fruit, do not taste of raw fruit at all.

Though different fruits are perhaps more naturally suited to different preserving techniques, it is frequently a personal as much as a practical choice to make one type of preserve over another with a particular fruit. For example, rhubarb, which is most frequently associated with jam, may be used in both jellies and marmalades; and kumquats, which are most frequently associated with jellies and marmalades, may be used in jam.

UNDERSTANDING JAMS

Jam, no matter what the flavor, always reminds me of England. Jams as we know and think of them today have a special bond with that country. Many now-classic jam fruits, including damsons and wild blackberries, were first brought into wide use by the English, who still maintain a taste for these time-tested flavors. The word jam is unique to the English language and is British in origin. Its linguistic precursor, marmalade, has appeared in many different cultures and meant many different things over the centuries. In English, one often thinks of marmalade as strictly a citrus preserve, but in other languages this word refers to fruit preserves of widely varying types.

The earliest fruit to be preserved was the quince, which was stored and cooked in honey in ancient Rome.

From these early quince preserves, others followed, always using fruits, such as damsons or sour oranges, that were high in both pectin (a natural thickener) and acid (a natural preservative). The tradition of preserves made with low-pectin, low-acid fruits started much later. Fruits low in pectin and acid are not as naturally suited to long-term preservation, and they are often, unlike the earliest preserved fruits, excellent eaten raw.

Although there are many variations in technique, the basic idea and process of jam making remain the same, no matter what kind of jam you are creating. To make jam, raw fruit is combined directly with sugar and lemon juice and cooked until it thickens to a spreadable consistency.

Numerous factors affect the jam-making process, including the specific qualities of the fruit and your desired end result. Jam making may incorporate a wide range of techniques. Depending upon which jam you are preparing, you may alternately puree part of the fruit ahead of time, macerate it with sugar overnight to draw out its juice, extract some of its juice prior to cooking, cook it in stages, cook it over high heat, or cook it over low heat, to name just a few possibilities.

Jams should be spreadable and unified in texture. Although some jams may be “looser” than others, they should be neither watery nor overly firm. Jam’s most important characteristic is its intensely fresh taste. Because a jam’s fruit is cooked for a much shorter time than that of a jelly or marmalade, jams bring out the pure flavor of a fruit without dramatically altering it. The brief cooking time and uneven texture of jams make them the most rustic of preserves. When making jam, no matter what the fruit, your goal should always be to make the freshest-tasting, most balanced and flavorful, and best-textured jam possible.

THE BEAUTY OF JELLIES & MARMALADES

Jelly making transforms fruit, reducing it to a tiny quantity of very potent sweetened juice. The process concentrates the fruit’s flavor dramatically, producing a result with a complex taste that may contrast sharply with its perfectly smooth texture. It is impossible to tell by simply looking at a jelly what fruit was used to make it. Jellies and marmalades are a labor of love, and they often require a large quantity of fruit. The effort of jelly and marmalade making is amply rewarded by the stunning end result.

The word jelly has acquired a negative connotation for many of us, because commercial jellies so frequently have a hard texture and have too often lost all taste of the fruits that were used to make them. But homemade jelly is a completely different story. Velvety and smooth, the jelly you make yourself will outshine nearly anything you might buy.

Similarly, it is difficult to find a really great store-bought marmalade, and people are often delighted and surprised upon sampling the marmalades in this book. Although I love bitter marmalade, marmalades need not be bitter if you do not want them to be. Th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Part I: Introduction: The Roots of Blue Chair Fruit
• Part II: Recipes
• Part III: Fruits for Preserving
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• Sources
• About the Author