Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb

With a surfeit of rhubarb to work with, I next turned my attention to a batch of rhubarb and ginger jam. I have sufficient ingredients to make 12 1lb jars of jam, but this is one of those recipes that doesn’t scale up so the jam is made in two batches, each making six jars.
Trim and chop 1kg of rhubarb stalks, then simmer them in 500ml of water until they soften and fall apart. Stir in 100g of stem ginger in syrup (discard the syrup, finely dice the ginger),  one teaspoon of powdered ginger, the juice of two lemons and 1kg of sugar with added pectin (preserving sugar). Keep the temperature to a simmer until the sugar is dissolved, then bring to a rolling boil. Remove from the heat when gelling temperature is reached.  Leave to stand for five minutes and bottle in hot sterilised jars.

And now rhubarb and raspberry jam

The first of today’s batches of jam involved making ten 28oz (800g) jars of rhubarb and raspberry jam, which is absolutely delicious. The recipe is from Mary Norwak’s Farmhouse Kitchen, which is no longer in print but can be found on Amazon. Once lunch is out of the way, we’ll be moving on to rhubarb and ginger jam, rhubarb chutney and, if we have time, our very berry jam.