Strawberry tree fruit jam, great way to savor its colorful berries!
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A delicious recipe for Fall, this jam prepared from Strawberry tree fruits – Arbutus unedo – is a concentrate of Vitamin C that will truly come in handy in Winter!
4½ pounds or 70 ounces (2 kg) of ripe, red strawberry tree fruits
2 lemons
1 teaspoon (about 5 g) powdered ginger
35 oz (1 kg) sugar
1 cup of water
Recipe for Arbutus strawberry jam
Strawberry tree fruit jam is different from other recipes because it’s cooked faster than usual to preserve as much vitamin C content as possible. This makes it even easier to prepare.
First, remove stems and leaves if there are still some on the fruits.
Rinse the fruits well in lots of water.
No need to dry them out afterwards. Cooking requires water so a few more drops clinging to the berries won’t matter.
Prepare strawberry tree fruits for jam
Dump the berries in a large cauldron, pot, or jam pan.
With the stove on low, simmer to slowly cook the berries until it forms a smooth, uniform liquid. The berries will dissolve and won’t form lumps in the mix anymore.
Stir regularly
If it gets too thick at this stage, add a little water. The goal of this first stage isn’t yet to reduce the mixture.
Run it through a food mill or sieve
Once the berries have dissolved to mush, run the mix through a sieve or a food mill to remove as many seeds as you can. Some smaller seeds may still filter through, that’s ok.
From the initial 4½ pounds (2kg), we got about 3⅓ pounds (50 ounces or 1.5 kg) seedless juice.
Cooking the strawberry tree fruit jam
Pour the resulting juice back in the jam pan or stock pot.
Add the sugar and simmer on low for 20 minutes, all the while stirring often with a wooden ladle.
Add about 1 teaspoon of powdered ginger.
Lastly, add the juice of the two lemons and turn the stove off right after stirring it in.
Pour the strawberry tree fruit jam in the pots, close the lid immediately, and flip the pot upside-down to create a sterile vacuum.
Once it has cooled down, you can store it right-side up. Best savored on a slice of toasted bread!
The strawberry tree, a beautiful shrubby tree
The strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo), one of the distinct symbols of the Mediterranean region, is called so because the berries truly look like round, wild strawberries. Harvests are often abundant. This tree’s fruits have unusually high levels of vitamin C, and while they’re rather bland when eaten raw, they’re excellent when cooked to make jam.
Images: CC BY-SA 2.0: Daniel, Nature & Garden contributor: Famille Decroix
Strawberry tree fruit jam is different from other recipes because it’s cooked faster than usual to preserve as much vitamin C content as possible. This makes it even easier to prepare.
Dump the berries in a large cauldron, pot, or jam pan.
Pour the resulting juice back in the jam pan or stock pot.
