There are few sweets as legendary as apricot jam with pits.
Children tell scary stories, that you can die, having eaten bones.
Adults are credited with Persian stories about the feasts of the Eastern Shahs, on which this delicacy was considered almost divine.
Why guess, let's prepare and try!
Apricot jam with kernels - general principles of cooking
• Apricots for jam is best to take well ripened or slightly unripe with greenish “cheeks”. Overripe fruits will be boiled out during the cooking process, and as a result you will not get jam with pieces of fruit, but jam. Fruits must be thoroughly washed with cold water, dried and removed the bones. The pulp of the fruit is cut in half or cut into small pieces. If whole apricots are required, they are slightly broken from one side, and the bone is removed with a small spoon.
• The bones are not thrown away. They are gently chopped with a hammer or crushed with a nut. Then remove the nucleoli, which are subsequently added to the jam, during cooking or before. When pouring fruit with sugar, the skin on the surface of the nucleoli is removed or left, it all depends on the recipe. Often, before removing the nucleoli, the stones are calcined in the oven. Often kernels are not added to kernels made from fruit, but nut (walnut or almond). They give the delicacy a peculiar rich taste.
• There are many ways of cooking delicious apricot jam with kernels and the difference in them is not only in the degree of maturity of the fruit, but also in what result you want to get. If you want a dainty amber color with dense pieces of pulp, note the cooking recipes with a one-time short cooking or multiple of slightly unripe apricots, soaked in a weak soda solution.
Daily apricot jam with nucleoli
Ingredients: • two kilograms of ripe apricots;
• white granulated sugar - 2.6 kg.
Preparation:
1. Pure, well-ripened apricots break into two halves. Remove the bones and gently chop them with a hammer. Remove the nucleoli.
2. Take a large container (basin or pan), which can be placed in the refrigerator. Put in her halves of apricots, perelaivaya their sugar, sand and nucleoli. After that, cover the container with a lid and put it in the refrigerator.
3. After one day, remove the container and place it on a very small fire. Without stirring, bring the apricot jam to a boil. Then lower the heat to a minimum, remove the formed foam from the surface and continue cooking for about forty minutes.
4. Pour the hot mass of boiling into sterile glass jars and roll up.
Apricot jam with kernels - “Tsarskoe”
Ingredients:
• one kilogram of granulated sugar;
• 200 ml of water;
• kilogram of ripe apricots.
Preparation:
1. Enumerate apricots. Soft and damaged remove. Leave even, well-ripened fruits with dense flesh.
2. Thoroughly rinse the fruit under running water. Carefully break them in half, but do not break. They should open up like shells.
3. Carefully remove the bones and place them in a roasting pan. Put in a hot oven (150 degrees) and calcine for five minutes, cool. Split the bones, remove the nucleoli. Lay one by one inside the opened fruit, then cover the fruit.
4. Pour water into granulated sugar and put on a little heat. When the sugar is completely dissolved, add heat and boil quickly.
5. Pour apricots with boiling syrup and leave to cool, covering the container with a linen towel or a large sheet of paper (you can use a newspaper).
6. When the mass has cooled completely, put the container back on the stove and bring to a boil. Several times during cooking, remove from heat and lightly shake the pan from side to side. This is done in order to stir the jam. If you stir with a spoon, you can damage the fruits and the nucleoli will fall out of them. 7. After the re-boiling mass is well cooled, reheat it again and bring it to full readiness with a slight boil.
Apricot jam with kernels - “Five minutes” (with alcohol)
Ingredients:
• ripe dense apricots - 1.3 kg;
• 800 gr. refined sugar;
• alcohol - 130 ml;
• one big lemon.
Preparation:
1. Immerse the apricots in water for ten minutes. Then remove, rinse several times and dry in a colander. Break into halves, carefully remove the bones, put in a separate bowl and leave for now.
2. Put the halved fruits in a large saucepan, pour in the alcohol, add sugar and place in the refrigerator for two days. Be sure to mix gently once a day, trying to lift up all the sugar that has settled at the bottom.
3. On the third day, remove the saucepan from the fridge, stir and put on the slowest heat.
4. Carefully chop the previously laid bones, remove the nucleoli and peel the skin.
5. After the boiling jam, add peeled kernels into it, a little cinnamon and put lemon. Citrus can be cut into small pieces or ringlets. If you do not want to leave the lemon in the jam, cut it into rings, so it will be easier to remove it at the end of cooking. Cook at minimum heat with a low boil for no more than 5 minutes.
6. Remove weight from heat and set aside.
7. After ten hours again bring to the boil in the same mode, boil for 5 minutes and again set aside for ten hours.
8. After that, boil the jam again, but cook until ready.
“Amber” - apricot jam with nucleoli
Ingredients:
• one kilogram of ripened apricots;
• kilo of sugar;
• a teaspoon of baking soda.
Preparation:
1. Pour one and a half liters of cold drinking water into an enamel saucepan. Pour soda into it and mix well.
2. Divide the washed apricots into two halves, cut each into large slices.
3. For five minutes, lower the fruit pieces into the soda solution. This will allow them to maintain their shape and not fall apart during further heat treatment. 4. Crush the nuts or break up the extracted bones with a hammer and remove the kernels.
5. Slice apricots in a colander, wash thoroughly and wait for the remaining water to drain.
6. In a separate bowl of sugar mixed with a quarter cup of water, boil a thick syrup. Fill apricot slices mixed with kernels, boiling syrup and leave to stand until completely cooled.
7. Then strain the syrup, boil again and pour over the fruit. So you need to repeat at least four times.
8. After the pulp is poured for the last fourth time, boil it over low heat for two minutes and roll it into sterile jars.
Apricot jam with almond kernels
Ingredients:
• unripe apricots - 1.5 kg;
• one and a half teaspoons of baking soda;
• one and a half kilograms of sugar;
• one and a half glasses of drinking water, filtered;
• A handful of peeled almond kernels.
Preparation:
1. Freshly picked, slightly immature fruits sort out and wash, remove the bones. You can cut them into two halves or just break them, but not completely.
2. Dissolve soda in one and a half liters of cold water. Fill the resulting solution with fruit and leave it for three hours. After which the solution is drained, and thoroughly wash the pulp and dry in a colander.
3. Mix the sugar with water and place on the weakest heat. When the grains of sugar are completely dissolved, and the syrup boils, dip the fruit into it.
4. Bring to a boil and lay the almond kernels. Boil at a slight boil for about 20 minutes, then remove from heat and leave overnight. Do not forget to cover the bowl with a sheet or sheet of paper.
5. The next day, boil again and boil again for 20 minutes.
6. Still boiling jam packaged in sterile jars and roll up with metal caps for preservation.
Apricot jam with walnut kernels
Ingredients:
• pitted apricots - one kilogram;
• 300 gr. walnut kernels;
• 600 gr. white sugar.
Preparation:
1. Washed, well-dried halves of fruits, pour in the whole amount of sugar, mix and leave to warm for several hours (3-4). 2. When the fruit starts making juice, mix them again and place the container on moderate heat. After boiling, boil for a slight boil for a quarter of an hour and remove from heat.
3. After the mass has cooled, put the container back on fire. Boil quickly, then, turning the heat down to a minimum, soak on it for 15 minutes and again set aside until it is completely cooled.
4. Repeat the process one more time.
5. Hazelnut kernels break in two and lower into apricot jam, after boiling it for the fourth time. Then boil together with nuts for 25 minutes and roll up hot.
Apricot jam with kernels - tips and tricks of cooking
• Apricot jam is cooked, ideally, in a copper basin, or in an enamel pot. Such containers are not oxidized when in contact with fruit acid.
• To thoroughly rinse the fruit, lower it into cold water for ten minutes and then rinse it under the tap.
• Poured sugar on fruits in hot weather, do not leave for a long time in the room, it is better to clean the refrigerator. Otherwise they may ferment.
• Before laying the nucleoli extracted from the bones, be sure to try them. Sometimes they may taste bitter.
• Do not add bitter kernels, jam will also be bitter. Better choose a different recipe and take a heart of walnuts or almonds.
• Roll apricot jam with kernels only into carefully sterilized jars for sealing with boiled metal lids. So the jam will last longer, and it will not need to be removed in the refrigerator.
• After cooking, be sure to let sweets brew for a while. The kernels of pits and nuts should be well absorbed syrup.
