Monday, February 4, 2013

Orange Jam

If summers are for making jams using berries and peaches, fall and winter are for making marmalade, orange jelly and probably orange jam. I don't really know why orange jam is not easily available as orange marmalade but here is an attempt to make the jam at home. Needless to say it goes very well with bread or crackers.
One Year Back - Vegan Puttanesca Sauce
Two Years Back -  Applesauce Breakfast Bread, Penne with Spicy Coriander Pesto
Three Years Back -  Ricotta Cheese Doodh Peda
Ingredients: 
Navel or Florida Oranges - 5 (they were pretty big)
Sugar - 1 1/4 cup (I used 1/4 cup per orange but you can increase it to 1/3 cup per orange too)
Agar Agar powder - 1 1/2 tsp
Zest of Orange - from 2 oranges

Method:
Keep a stainless plate in the freezer. Peel the skin of all the oranges. Remove the skin and use only flesh discarding seeds. Place them in a blender or food processor fitted with chopping blade. Make a coarse puree out of it. Take it into a microwave safe bowl that can hold twice the amount of puree you have. Microwave on high for 5 minutes. Stir and microwave again for 15 minutes in intervals of 5 minutes. Add sugar, orange zest, agar agar powder. Mix and microwave at intervals of 3 minutes stirring after every 3 minutes. When the mixture has thickened considerably and can coat the back of a spoon, take out the plate from freezer and drop a spoon of the hot jam. It should get the consistency of the jam and form a thin skin at the top. That means the jam is done. If not, keep microwaving at intervals of 3 minutes and keep testing. My not so powerful microwave took about 30 minutes total. It also depends on what material bowl you are using. I was using a heavy glass bowl.

You can make it using the stove top method too. Store in a clean jar in the refrigerator for 1 month.

Notes:
This was not a very sweet jam and I made it less sugary on purpose. You can increase the sugar to your liking. Lot of people use pectin for making this kind of jam but I did not have any and agar agar worked perfectly.

Enjoy.
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6 comments:

  1. Nice jam , can we use pectin in place of agar agar

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nisha,
      Yes. You may use Pectin. About 2 TBSP should do in this recipe.

      Delete
  2. Jam looks delicious. Can we substitute agar agar with something else?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes. You may use Pectin. About 2 TBSP should do in this recipe.

      Delete
  3. Amazing clicks dear and simply wonderful recipe. Mouthwatering here.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Looks tempting!! I love orange marmalade though!!

    ReplyDelete

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