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mellyofthesouth

question about recipe from the Ball Complete Book...

mellyofthesouth
16 years ago

I've been perusing the recipes in the wine/savory jellies section of the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I've been looking for additional pepper jellies and specifically ones that use dried peppers. I find it interesting that a good portion of the ones that sound good to me are specified for 4 oz jars. That will cut down on the amount of batches I can make since I don't have that many really small jars. Anyway, what I'm wondering about is how you think the dried pepper should be handled in one of the recipes. Specifically...

In the Inferno Wine Jelly (p.122) it calls for 3 dried hot chili peppers, halved lengthwise. The recipe says it makes about seven 4 oz jars. It doesn't say anything specifically about the dried peppers again. So if you are supposed to put a half in each jar, then one jar would be shorted. But it doesn't say anything about removing the dried peppers.

For reference, in the orange chili marmalade recipe (p.96) it says to cook the oranges with the dried peppers and then remove and discard the peppers.

Which brings me to an additional point. If I am concerned about the tecture of the dried peppers in the habanero gold jelly that I plan to make, what would you think if I steep the habaneros with the vinegar for a while, and then discard them before cooking? Or leave them in while cooking and pull them out just before jarring. I could replace the 1/4 cup of habaneros with a diced jalapeno (less than 1/4 cup) to leave in the jelly.

One other recipe to debate, is the Balsamic Red Pepper Jelly (p.126). It uses 5 med red bell peppers, 3 med jalapeno peppers, and 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar. I have a bottle of picante balsamic vinegar (6% acidity) that has chili extract listed on the ingredients. I haven't tasted it to see how spicy it is. The batch of jalapenos that I used last week were not very hot. The additional ones in my fridge were purchased at the same time. What would you think about using the spicy balsamic to pump up the volume?

What would you do? (Which in my head sounds like the last line from the Cat in the Hat - from memory so it could off a little - What would you do if your mother asked you?)

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