With summer approaching deliciously quickly, its time to start thinking about celebrating the season and preserving its wealth of fruit and berries when they are at their most splendid. Jams and chutneys can be done later in the season, when their ingredients are less perfect, but bottled fruits need to be done just when the fruit is at its peak.
When I was a young chef at the Dorchester Hotel, working under Anton Mosimann, we would regularly fill hundreds of preserving jars with fruits such as peaches, plums, nectarines and pears for use on our breakfast buffet throughout the year. Anton was a great believer in using fresh local produce and his philosophy in those early days have changed the way generations of Chefs create their Menu’s and combine flavours and textures today.
The original objective of storing away food in times of a plentiful harvest, was to supplement the diet with these foods when they were out of season or when scarce. Things have now changed dramatically, due to the fact that produce is available daily from all over the world. These days we preserve food because it’s fun and it’s the best way of making use of surplus crops, either bought, cultivated or gathered free, before time and chemistry cause them to deteriorate.
I like to preserve fruits such as peaches, nectarines, cherries and plums in tall, elegant glass preserving jars to decorate our restaurant. Bottled fruits also make excellent gifts for any ‘foodie’ and mine have been very much appreciated by our guests at Christmas over the years.
Bottled Fruits
There is not really a recipe as such for preserving your fruits but a set of instructions that must be adhered to.
Choose your fruit, make sure they are clean and in perfect condition.
Make a stock syrup with equal parts of water and caster sugar, bring to the boil and add some lemon juice or vitamin c powder.
Fill a large pan with water and bring to a rolling simmer.
Prepare your fruit, pears should be peeled but not cored as air will get trapped in the jar then blanched in the stock syrup until almost cooked. Nectarines and peaches should be blanched in hot water and peeled like tomatoes. Plums and cherries need to be washed.
Sterilize your preserving jars in the simmering water for 3-4 minutes.
Place in your fruit and cover with the hot stock syrup, at this point you can decorate the inside of your jar with mint leaves, cinnamon sticks or star anise.
Seal the jar and stand in the hot water. Now what you are trying to achieve is a vacuum at the top of the jar so that bacteria can not survive. This is done by heating up the jar in the water, the air expands from the seal around the jar and when it cools the rubber seal does not allow the air back in. This will take approx 8-10 minutes depending on the size of the jar.
Remove from the pan and store in a cool dark place.