Sometimes, fruit prices become cheaper than usual. If my husband visits the shop on those days, he will buy almost all that he can carry back home. Then I will have no space for keeping other things in the fridge for the next few days. I always feel that apples are his weakness. Because, everyday he buys apples and never eat even one. When he wants to eat, I have to peel, deseed, chop the apples to small cubes and so I never encourage him to eat them. Like father like daughter. All the work goes to me. So, the apples sit in the freezer until it starts shrinking in size. Same is the case with any other fruit. When all the space in the fridge is taken by these fruits, I have to stop him from buying anymore.
Last week he went to the market and bought two packets of strawberries. Jebu ate about half a packet by admiring the red beauties. It was her first time eating some. It was a long weekend and we had gone for a short trip for three days. When we came back, the strawberries were all ripe and a few of them had started to wilt. Still there was another packet to be opened. How sad I felt for them! ?
Then I thought I can make the fruit preserve so that they can stay in the fridge longer, but in a better way. You can use fruits like apples, strawberries, pineapples, mangoes, kiwis etc for the preserve. It is always better to peel the tough skinned fruits before starting. I have prepared mixed fruit jam before and the same way I did this too.
You will need:
- 250 gms fruit- I used strawberry here.
- Sugar- 5 to 6 table spoons.
- Lime juice- 1 tsp.
Method:
- Wash and hull the berries, which means to remove the leaf and the white portion below the stalk. It is like you remove the white hard portion of tomatoes. Insert the tip of a knife around the stalk of the strawberry and move in a circular motion and pull the white part out. This is called hulling. ?
- Wipe the berries with a kitchen towel to remove the water on the surfaces.
- Place a non stick pan on the stove top and put on low flame.
- Put all the ingredients into the pan. Do not add any water. Keep it covered for a while until the sugar melts.
- There will be lots of water oozing out of the fruits. Now open the lid and keep on boiling on low flame. Stir occasionally but carefully without smashing the berries.
- After about 20 minutes, the liquid slowly thickens and starts bubbling and frothing.
- Remove the froth with a dry spoon.
- If you are using mixed fruits, chop all the fruits to bite sized pieces and pressure cook them to one whistle. Add just one tsp of water before cooking. Later, blend them in a blender and keep boiling with lime juice and sugar until the desired consistency is reached.
- Store in dry jars once it cools down.
- Serve with bread, puddings, ice creams, rotis or simply eat as a dessert. Suggested only for kids! ?
Enjoy cooking!