Monday, 18 May 2009

Japonica Jelly

Out by the dog kennel there are these Japonica plants. In spring they have lovely pink/red blossoms, but more recently I noticed they are bearing a little yellow fruit.

I asked Farmer Godfrey about them and he told they were Japonica apples and could be used to make jelly in much the same way as quinces are. I needed no further encouragement, and yesterday I picked all I could find. I think it was quite a late harvest as lots were small and shrunken, but I figure this would only make the jelly sweeter and more flavoursome.

They are funny little fruit, with lots of pips inside:

After boiling them to a pulp (the smell was amazing - all botanical and floral), I strung the mixture up in muslin to drain - the key to any good jelly is to use multiple layers of muslin and not to squeeze any juice through - just let it drip and drip and drip. I left it about seven or eight hours.

You may note in the above photo that:

1. It was a beautiful sunny day yesterday, and
2. as well as the jelly, I was making honey almond cookies and a pumpkin and silverbeet quiche (with pumpkin and silverbeet from our garden of course).

After boiling up the juice with tonnes of sugar, I was left with a marvelously firm, clear bright yellow jelly, which I hope will be good with cheese.

Another productive day in the Lower Sefton Road kitchen.

3 comments:

becka said...

Wow, these look amazing! I've never seen or heard of anything like them. Hmm, I'm excited to get to some preserving and such myself now that summer is almost here in Vancouver!

Unknown said...

Yay! You found my nerdy toy and thrifting blog! I'm taking notes from yours. My Matt was ready to kill me when I was describing the Celebratory Buns you made (we're working out and avoiding sweets, currently, to shave off our lazy winter layers). I reeeaaaally want to find me some fruits to try my hand at some jam making now!

kuma said...

I have never seen these apples.