Jam Recipe

For Heather and Connie... here is the marrow and ginger jam recipe. It comes from a great New Zealand book called "The Cooks Garden" by 3 New Zealand sisters: Mary Browne, Helen Leach and Nancy Tichborne. The book seems to be out of print, but there does seem to be a "More from the Cook's Garden" book that is more available that I don't have... hint, hint Mum!
Anyway, back to the recipe for yesterday's jam:

1 large marrow (about 1.5kg) - Connie, a marrow is a zucchini which has grown very, very large!
4 tablespoons water
50g bruised root ginger
1.5kg sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
120g chopped crystallised ginger
1 bottle liquid pectin (225ml) or equivalent made from pectin powder

Peel the marrow and remove the seeds. Chop the flesh finely (I used the grater on the food processor). Place the marrow and water in a pot and simmer, covered until the marrow is tender (about 20 minutes - I used the pressure cooker - 4 minutes). Tie the root ginger in a piece of muslin. Add to the marrow with the sugar, crystallised ginger and lemon juice. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Boil hard for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Take out the muslin bag and stir in the pectin. Allow to cool before pouring into clean dry jars. Seal.

Note - this works really well sometimes and not so well other times! I tend to boil it too long and get a sticky mess..... You need to play around a bit with the pectin. I suggest you boil it and let it sit in the pot till it cools quite a lot to see if it is going to thicken. If not then just boil it a bit longer and try again. It doesn't need to be boiling hot when you put it in the jars. It is definitely worth trying a few times to get it right.