Recipe:Black Grape Jelly
This jelly isn't exactly black, just very dark from the addition of syrah wine during cooking, but I like the contradiction in terms, since "black" sounds like an impenetrable nothingness, while we already know that jelly is a quivering crystal. This recipe is made from Concord grapes supplied by Farmer James Birch of Flora Bella Farm, which I fancied up a bit with rosemary, lavender and red, red wine.
What my BLACK JELLY doesn't have in it is commercial pectin, not because there is anything inherently wrong with that stuff, but because the challenge I set out for myself was to make jelly without it. Grapes have less pectin than apples or crabapples, though, so you have to reduce the extraced juice far more to achieve a jell set. And even then, this proved to be a rather soft jelly. My apple jelly is firm enough to hold an edge when you cut it. This jelly slumps, but I don't mind.
The important thing I figured out with this batch is that you have to reduce the ratio of sugar to juice so that the juice, after long reduction, doesn't become an excessively sweet jelly. Whereas you might use 3/4 of a cup of sugar for every cup of extracted apple juice (which is rich in pectin and therefore needn't be reduced as far), here you shouldn't add more than 1/2 cup sugar for every cup of grape juice. I'd like to know if you could get away with even less.
This jelly would work equally on a homely peanut butter sandwich or a prissy cheese plate. It's like your country cousin about whom they say "he cleans up well"—it can go anywhere.
BLACK JELLY FROM CONCORD GRAPES
a quantity of Concord grapes (you need the pectin from the Concord's thick skin and seeds. I doubt other varieties such as the thin-skinned, seedless Red Flame would work)
sugar
a ripe, dark, fruity, low tannin red wine such as a California syrah
rosemary
lavender
1 Rinse the grape bunches and strip the "berries" from their stems. Add grapes to a large kettle and crush very thoroughly. Rapidly bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. DO NOT STIR or your jelly will likely be cloudy.
2 Strain through a jelly bag or colander lined with damp cheese cloth and allow to drip for an hour. Place juice in the fridge overnight.
3 The next day, you'll be excited to see tartarite crystals clinging to the inside of the vessel and perhaps even floating on the juice's surface. Remove them by straining juice through a double-thickness of damp cheese cloth. Measure your juice, note the quantity and add to a preserving pan. Bring to a boil and begin reducing.
4 Measure 1/2 cup of sugar for every 1 cup of juice. Spread it on a baking pan and warm it in a slow oven.
5 Measure 1/4 cup wine for every 2 cups juice. (So 1 cup wine for 8 cups juice.) Set aside.
6 When the juice had reduced by about 1/4, stir in the warm sugar, which will dissolve on contact.
7 Once the liquid begins to visibly thicken, stir in the red wine.
8 Continue reducing over lively heat until fine bubbles start to gather in rafts on the surface of the jelly and then billow up as foam. Turn off heat and test for a jell set. When a drop of hot jelly mounds slightly on a cold plate and forms a skin when placed in the freezer for 90 seconds, you're there. If you're not, cook another minute or two and repeat jell test.
6 Once a jell set is achieved, turn off heat and add lavender and rosemary to hot jelly to infuse for 2-3 minutes. For quantities, you'll have to follow your own taste, but as a guideline: try 2" rosemary branch plus 1 head of dried lavender (or 1/2 teaspoon dried lavender flowers) per 4 cups of raw juice as measured in step 3.
7 Ladle hot jelly into prepared jars through a strainer (to catch aromatics), skim and seal. Process in a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes.
YIELD
13 pounds Concord grapes yielded 3.5 pints (not much, right?)
2 x 12 oz
2 x 8 oz
4 x 4 oz
Reader Comments (2)
sugary and sweet, it's a fruit that is more familiar in a glass or a jam than off the vine.
Hmmm ... to call it "Black Jelly" I might actually recommend using Malbec wine ... aka "The Black Wine of Cahors".