Strawberries of various species and subspecies, both wild and cultivated (including strawberries) are a kind of perennial plants that give tasty fruits containing various useful substances, namely: vitamin C and other acids, carbohydrates, nitrogen compounds, pectin and tannins. The fruits of strawberries are suitable for consumption in fresh as well as in processed form, for example, in the form of jam.
Let's decide for ourselves how much (or more exactly, how long) to cook strawberry jam.
I must say the truth: with prolonged thermal exposure, a large part of the vitamin C, contained in this case in the fruits of strawberries, alas, will collapse. But to harvest strawberries for the winter somehow it is necessary, but voluminous powerful freezers are not in every house. Therefore, we will try to choose the most sparing, that is, fast ways of cooking jam - so we will keep the maximum of useful substances.
We will tell you how to cook strawberry jam properly and tasty. So we collect or buy beautiful fruits of strawberries and sugar of domestic production (Polish sugar is not good).
How to cook strawberry jam-pyatiminutku?
Option 1-st without water
Ingredients:
- strawberry fresh ripe (preferably small or medium-sized fruit) - 3 parts;
- granulated sugar - 1 part.
Preparation
Remove the strawberry fruit from the stems and rinse thoroughly with cold water, then put in a colander or a sieve to make the glass water. Then we put prepared strawberries in this way in enameled (without flaw) or aluminum utensils, in which we will cook jam (it is most convenient basins or large bowls). If the fruits are large, they can be cut in half each. Fill the fruit with sugar and lightly mix. Leave for a while, so that the berries let the juice.
When this happened, gently mix everything and wait for another 40 minutes, after which we put the working capacity on the weakest fire. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon or spatula. When foam appears, we remove it. After a confident boil, cook the jam, continuously stirring, for a maximum of 5 minutes, 8 minutes (this is if the berries are large enough). We pour the jam with a clean ladle into sterilized jars, they can be rolled up or closed using plastic or metal covers (if the design allows). Jars with jam are better to store at low plus temperature on the glassed verandah or loggia, in the pantry, in the cellar.
Option 2 in sugar syrup (that is, with water)
Ingredients:
- strawberries fresh ripe - 1 kg;
- sugar - 1 kg;
- water - 200-250 ml.
Preparation
We sort out the berries, remove the stems and rinse them with cold water, then move them to a colander or strainer.
Mix in a bowl sugar with water and cook until completely dissolved - it turns syrup . With the weakest boiling of the syrup, carefully immerse the fruits of strawberries into it and cook for 5 minutes, taking off the foam. We stop the flow of fire and completely cool the jam. Secondarily bring the jam to a boil on the lowest heat and boil for another 3-5 minutes, after which we fill the jars and cork them in one way or another.
You probably noticed that the first recipe uses less sugar, which means that it turns out to be a more useful option. This is so, but, alas, in this case, the integrity of the fruits is not preserved. In the second variant, the integrity and beauty of the strawberry fruit is preserved (well, almost all), just cook and transfer to cans gently.
In the cold season, strawberry jam will most pleasantly please you, your guests and your family (especially children - they usually love it). Strawberry jam is well served for fresh tea or, for example, rooibos, mate and other herbal teas. Also strawberry jam can be used as a filling for baking, for the preparation and processing of confectionery.