A friend of mine gave me as a present some beautiful and giant organic lemons coming from Kalamos island, Greece. A triumph of perfume and flavour that inspired me to preapare a very nice recipe: easy, tasty, cheap…lemon jam!
Take notes!
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INGREDIENTS
2 kg of organic lemons
sugar, half of the lemons pulp weight
some fresh mint leaves
METHOD
Peel the lemons removing the white, bitter part and keep the zest of 2 of them: julienne the zests.
Put in a pot some cold water, add the zests, switch the flame on and boil them for some instants from the boiling point to make them lose the bitter taste. Repeat it for three times, the third time add a tbsp of sugar.
Weigh the cut lemons pulp and now add the half of their weight of sugar.
Put everything in a pot and let it cook slowly for 30-40 minutes. Be careful, lemons are rich of natural pectin and the jam could become thick quickly, stay whit her while cooking!
Then use a vegetable mill to divide the pulp from seeds or white parts and put again on a slow flame for 20 minutes adding the zests.
Once the jam is ready, put it in jars when it is still very hot adding some fresh mint leaves. Close the jars tightly and put them upside down on a wooden surface until they are cooled.
Then start the pasteurization process putting the jars (this time not upside down) in a large pot and cover them with water that you will slowly make boil. From the boiling point, let them there for more or less 20 minutes. If the pasteurization process has not been successful just repeat it.
Keep the jars in the dark and wait 15 days before eating the jam.
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NOTE
Try this jam to prepare some biscuits or a tart and to try something special, combine it with savoury cheeses (i.e. pecorino).
