Rhubarb and Ginger Jam

One of the blogs that I regularly follow is Spitalfields Life, it's always very interesting with some beautiful photographs and wonderful life stories.  Last week one of the featured stories was of The London Borough of Jam and the making of some Rhubarb and Ginger Jam following a visit to the market for the rhubarb in question.  Now, I have NEVER EVER been a fan of rhubarb,  although I did once make rhubarb and muscat jelly and loved it, but the fruit itself has always rather left me unmoved, particularly the atrocious offerings at school of rhubarb crumble which was always tart enough to strip paint.   Anyway, this jam looked so beautiful with its dusky rose pink colour that I just had to make some.

First I had to find a recipe for some rhubarb jam and I didn't need to look too far - Prepped by Vanessa Kimbell has a very easy recipe - so all I had to do was buy some rhubarb.

Because I wasn't sure how this would taste, I thought I would only make a small amount of jam and so bought just one packet of rhubarb - 400g.  

This was chopped and put into the saucepan on a gentle heat with the lid on.  After about 10 or 15 minutes and some careful occasional stirring, this had more or less become liquid, just as Vanessa said it would.

Before starting I had put some glass jars in the oven at 160C.

Once the rhubarb was liquid I then added 400g of caster sugar and stirred it until it had dissolved.  Then I brought the jam to a boil for about 5-6 minutes and took the jars out of the oven.

Instructions were also to place a saucer in the fridge before starting the process.  Vanessa also instructed, whilst the jam was boiling, to use a metal spoon and to GENTLY skim off any froth that appeared on the top - hmmm - I didn't follow this unfortunately and have some white frothy bits in the jam to prove it!  The jam was ready when it coated the back of the metal spoon and to test for setting point I took the saucer out of the fridge and dropped a teaspoon of jam onto the cold saucer.

Unfortunately not a very clear picture!

Test passed and so I took the saucepan off the heat and added the juice of half a lemon - gave it a good stir and then proceeded to chop a piece of stem ginger.

I wasn't sure how strong the ginger flavour would be so only added one piece of ginger that had been chopped - I guess I'll find out whether that was too little or too much when I put some on my toast tomorrow morning!

The jam was then ladled into the waiting jars and after about one minute I put the lids on.

Just three small jars, but enough, one for my parents, one for my next door neighbour and one for us.  I've just tasted a teaspoonful of this jam and can tell you that it is so good I'll be making some more before the week is out - not sure I'll be giving any of the next batch away it's that good.

And as rhubarb is currently in season, I'm entering this in Ren Behan's Simple and in Season/Fabulicious

Food monthly blog event.

http://writingacookerybook.blogspot.com/

http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/02/04/the-london-borough-of-jam/

http://www.renbehan.com/2012/02/simple-and-in-season-blog-event-on-fabulicious-food