Iron Chef WAYCT - What Are You Cooking Today
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@Giles I made a large batch this year as I found some great peaches and figured I'd go ahead and make plenty for gifts. And since I scaled up and went off script, I'm trying to remember exactly what I did as these jars have been in my cupboard a good few months.
You seem like you're well experienced in the dark art of jamming. I would keep the lime zest low if you want to use it. Assuming you're using three pounds of peaches, I wouldn't put more than a teaspoon of lime zest as it ends up coming through more pronounced that you would assume. That said, having done this with and without lime zest, I think it's much better without it.
I would use lemon juice and pectin both since peaches are low in pectin.
Also, pending on your preference of rosemary, you can either drop the sprigs in whole, strip the sprigs and dice or strip and work them down in a mortar and pestle for more oil extraction. Then either put your rosemary in cheesecloth or be okay with having bits of rosemary in your jam. I like lots of rosemary and leave the leaves in mine. I'm a savage.
That's a really long-winded way to get to I would work it out roughly as follows:
Peach Rosemary Jam with or without Lime Zest
3LB fresh peaches
5 1/2 cups sugar
7 tablespoons pectin
4 sprigs of rosemary
1/3 cup lemon juice. (Or lime but I think lemon works better)
1 teaspoon of lime zest (optional but I like it better without it)Also, if you don't want to peel your peaches, you can blanche them in boiling water and then drop them in an ice bath and the skins will slide off like when blanching tomatoes.
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Also, I skipped any sort of actual cooking of jam but mashing, cooking and setting jam is pretty much the same across the board. Throw some spoons in and plates in the freezer the day before or day of and when you think you've got it the right consistency, drop a tablespoon of jam on a frozen plate and see if it runs. If so, keep going, if not, you're good. Most importantly, don't wear your 11oz white Iron Heart t-shirts unless you want it to look like Cy Twombly got ripped before painting it.
