Brandy Mango jam

mccardey

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I just made up a recipe for this, so before I forget it:

mangoes
sugar
teensy bit of water
some lemon juice
a bit of brandy (not too much)
two peppercorns
lemon zest.

Make jam out of it.

It's really nice.
 

benbenberi

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That sounds really good! Are they regular black peppercorns?
 

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Will have to try this! I might try lime juice instead...

Very ripe mango, or not so ripe? Did you mash the fruit, or just tiny-cube it up?

How much sugar, relative to fruit? Did it gel up okay without added pectin?
 

mccardey

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It is, in fact, delicious.

I'm a terrible recipe follower with jams because I don't like them too sweet so I do it all to taste. I used four mangoes (diced and frozen in summer - it's midwinter here now). Two of them were barely ripe, the other two just ripe enough. I don't like pectin, so I always use some under-ripe fruit and hope that it's pectin-rich. Some is, some isn't. If it isn't I call it a syrup. ;).

I put the frozen mango chunks in a bowl with maybe a third cup of sugar to bring out the juices while they melted (no heat at this stage).

Then - into a pan on very low heat with a splash of water and a couple of regular black peppercorns, stir occasionally, cook till the mango has softened. Took them off the heat, splashed in some brandy (again - to taste: I didn't want it to overpower anything.)

Then squeezed juice of one lemon in, and some lemon zest to taste, moved it all to a blender just for a moment (I like jams chunky) back onto the low heat until it just began to simmer, stirred it and fine-tuned the lemon. It passed the chilled-saucer-gel-test on the first attempt, and this morning it's gelled very nicely, though it's a touch sweeter than I like, so I'll be adding more lemon juice and zest before I use it. Maybe some thyme?

I'd play around with the pepper next time,too - it's there now, but the sugar overload makes the pepper hard to catch - it's more aftertaste.

The base taste of mango is at the forefront (and has a lovely mouthfeel!) with lemon and a slight background heat from the pepper. Although - yeah - too much sugar, really for my taste. It sweetened overnight.

Served on home-made crusty white sourdough with home-made butter, oh my.
 
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