Green Tea and Quince jelly

I had bought my first packet of green tea. Being in search of anything other than black tea, something which was pleasant to drink in the morning or at work. After having tried all kinds of Yogi teas (I still haven't finished them all!), I again felt like making another round of tea hunting and saw green tea. Earlier I turned my eyes away from such teas, I only drank black tea, and only if cooked in the Indian style as chai. I love to try out different flavours when it comes to food, but have been very conservative when it comes to tea until recently. I still don't like aromatised teas much and feel that nothing can compare a wonderful cup of hot Indian style chai with milk. Ummmm.......!
I still drink it, but now I use it exclusively to take care of my migrane and it works wonders, like today itself. Now I'm sitting in front of the computer, while it could have been that I was lying in bed covering my head with a blanket, making sure not a single stream of light reached my eyes. I actually took some rest, it being a saturday, before I prepared my slightly europeanised version of chai - black tea infused with ginger and caradamom in a pot and then adding milk later to it. Yes.... that was what I needed and I'm the fittest person in the world right now. :)

Coming back to green tea now. I then saw this shelve with green teas and remembered having drunk this quite pleasant tasting tea once. And thought of giving it a try. And it was a good choice I made. Another reason was the thought on all the good vitalising and health promoting substances it contains. Like plant polyphenols, vitamins, caffeine, and essential minerals. The most important of them being the polyphenols like EGCG, the most abundant catechin in tea, which are well known as antioxidants, making them so healthy and have been made responsible for (only to a certain extent) the cancer preventing properties. And their caffeine content is much lower thn that of coffeee or even black tea, which is another positive point about them*(see below).Quince is a wonderful fruit which I had tasted raw only once before in a village in Italy, many years back. I saw them here a few days back in the market and it brought back the memories of our lovely trip to southern Italy and I bought them instantly. I'm extraordinarily happy I did it!
And then like it always is, one thing lead to the other and I was preparing my first ever quince jelly with green tea. I had put them carefully in my vegetable shelve in the fridge and was planing to make a quince jelly. A couple of days later out of nowhere the thought crossed my mind, what if I used green tea. Being a bit scared, I started searching for recipes with both the ingredients together and I didn't find any, but instead found a couple of other recipes of green tea prepared with rose petals or orange peels. I searched mainly in German language though. Now, that disappointed me a bit and it also made me totally skeptical, but then the next day I decided that I had to try it, as I still faintly remembered the quince fruit being very aromatic. And, was I right!

Here is the recipe:

Green Tea and Quince jelly

Based on the recipe at Marions Kochbuch (in German)

Ingredients:
1 kg (1000 g ; about 2 pounds) quince
3/4 l green tea, prepared fresh**
1 cup lemonbalm leaves, whole
1 lemon, the juice
250 g gelling sugar 2:1 (sugar with pectin) - or slightly more depending on the quantity of juice extracted

Equipments required:
2 large pans,
one large strainer,
large spoons,
a laddle,
a small porcelain plate placed in the freezer,
2-3 boiled jars with twist-off lids

Method:

• Wash the fruits, rub off the fluff, remove the seeds (toxic) and all the black spots
• cut into large pieces with the skin
  
• take a large and deep pot and add the fruits and the green tea
• cook for 40 minutes covered on medium-low
• add lemon balm leaves, mix and cook for another 10 minutes
  
• the fruits would be very soft by now and enough pectin and fruit juices would have infused into the tea
• mash the fruits lightly with a spoon or laddle
  
• place a cheese cloth over a large metal stainer placed over another deep sauce pan
• pour the cooked quince into it with the help of a spoon
• let strain
  
• twist the cheese cloth ends together tightly to let the remaining juice to come out at the end
• do not do it too strongly, as it may make the jelly turn too cloudy and not give a clear transleuscent jelly
• remove strainer, and measure the quantity, should be around 500 ml
• if the quantity is more increase the quantity of gelling sugar accordingly)
  
• add the juice of one lemon and gelling sugar, mix throughly
  
• (optionally you can add lemon balm leaves now, use a teabag for that)
• bring to boil and keep cooking on medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring with a laddle
  
• keep laddle in the pan
  
• take out the plate from freezer and pour a drop of the jelly with the laddle on it,
  
• if the jelly turns firm and doesn't remain runny and thin then it is ready!
• pour with the laddle into boiled jars, close lid tightly, turn upside down for 5 to 10 minutes
• turn them back and let cool down

*Sources of the information on green tea were from here, here and here.
**Wiki source: how to prepare green tea .

The moment I started cutting the quinces, I was totally overwhelmed by the aroma of the fruit. "WOW!" I thought. It smelled like a mixture of pineapple, rose, guava and oranges. But, isn't that overwhelming enough! And after the jelly was ready, cooling down in the bottles, I tried to taste the still warm and soft jelly remainig in the laddle, licking with my finger. Won............derful! This jelly held more than its promise! The intensity and variety of of flavours which exploded on my tongue with it was awesome. Interestingly I found that it had a pleasant flavour of roses after being cooked. In fact, initially, after seeing one recipe, I even wanted to buy rose petals, but didn't manage to. But, hey, who needs them, when you have quince!
It is a wonderful recipe which has the goodness of green tea and the richness in flavour of quince. Perfect, isn't it?!

While trying to find translations for the German words for the recipe - like the "fluff" on the skin (called Flaum in German), I came across this wonderful recipe for quince jelly at Elise Bauer's blog Simply Recipes with detailed step by step pictures.

I'm sending off this recipe to Original Recipe event at Lore's Culinarty.
And I remembered that I'm just in time for Meeta's Monthy Mingle being hosted at her blog this time. I had dropped the idea of taking part in this event, as I had no plans of using coffee and had no clue to what one could do with tea. Of course, I only had black tea in mind at that time. But, here I'm with my entry!

Jams, Chutneys and another Award !!

I have been talking about posting the recipes of my jams and chutneys I have been making since long. And finally I have managed to put them down from my diary to my "cyber-cookbook" here!

For the recipes, please go here.

These were the different ways I enjoyed eating my chutneys and jams...

MANGO PINEAPPLE GINGER CHUTNEY
...on a slice of bread,

...with buckwheat-potao pakodas,

TOMATO APPLE ONION CHUTNEY (RELISH)


with my delicious zucchini bread, both made fresh at that moment........eternal bliss till the last bite!
We have been enjoying them with all kinds of things. It was a wonderful decision to make this chutney, whose inspiration came from a Dr. Oetker booklet on jams and relishes. But, I made mine with a lot more Indian spices.

MANGO PINEAPPLE RASPBERRY JAM
Heaven on toast.... The best jam I have made so far! Rishab loves it too, but he loves the simple strawberry jam I made for him (picture not shown) as much too!

FIGS GINGER CHUTNEY
Turned out to be much spicier than I expected. Even though I am enjoying eating it, I would reduce or maybe even leave out fresh ginger net time (next year!), as the taste of figs is getting hidden behind that of ginger. I can imagine my father telling me that it has turned out perfect, but next time I might try adding more cinammon and cloves instead and maybe also ground green cardamoms (for recipe - see link on top).

Here are a few pictures to show the steps :
Wash, peel, chop and / or puree (or both) the fruits....
add citric acid (or lemon juice) and sugar/gelly sugar to it, mix and let stand for a while...
Cook for 15 to 20 minutes. and bottle them in cooked jars or botttels.
Turn them up side down....
for about 5-10 minutes or even sometimes 15-20 minutes, before turning them back. Helps create a vaccum!
Let it cool down.
Keep in a cool, dark and dry place or at best in the refrigerator.
Use within a few months. I have kept my jams in the fridge for up to a year and they tasted excellent even at the end of the year. Chutneys, I have made them for the first time and being not so sweet, I'm not sure if they will all stay good for so long too. Maybe it would depend on the ingredients.
Important Note: Do not tighten the bottles again after they have cooled down!!

While making such preserves, one has to keep in mind that they should contain enough of the fruit acids, like citric acids or others. There are fruits which have low amounts of it. berries like red currents are usually sour enough that they do not neccesarily require any addition of citric acid, for example. On the other hand, mango, pineapple, pears, peaches and such similar fruits require addition of citric acid or any fruit acid (ascorbic acid - vitamin C , but it gets damaged by heat!).
Sugar is a natural preservative, but since too high amounts are not healthy, a good sterile working method while preparing them is a good idea. Cook the preserves for long enough, if you plan to keep them for long. Amounts which are to be used up fast (within weeks) don't need too many precautions.

And now about something special which made me feel sooooooo very happy! Dear Ivy of Kopiaste awarded me with this :
This is my second award now. Now, need I tell you, why I am happy? I guess not! And I must say that I am as happy to get it as I was the first time.
I would soon forward it to others, once I have come down from cloud 9 ! :)