Redcurrant Jelly

the clear scarlet jelly of the English kitchen garden: redcurrants cooked whole, strained overnight without pressing, and set with sugar alone, for lamb, venison, and game

Origin: England

From the journey of Currant.

No fruit in the English garden sets so readily as the redcurrant. It carries an exceptional quantity of both pectin and acid, the two things a jelly needs, so that it requires nothing at all beyond sugar and a boil of a few minutes to produce a preserve of extraordinary clarity and firmness, a bright translucent scarlet that catches the light like glass. The English found for it a use that has become one of the fixed points of the national table. Redcurrant jelly is not primarily a spread; it is a condiment for meat, served in a small dish beside roast lamb and mutton, venison, hare, and game birds, its sharp sweetness cutting fat and richness in the way that other cuisines use fruit sauces or pickles. It is stirred by the spoonful into pan gravies to gloss and deepen them, it is the base of Cumberland sauce, and it is the traditional glaze of the pastry-cook's fruit tart. The redcurrant reached English gardens from the Low Countries in the sixteenth century, and within a hundred years the jelly was in every household book. It is amongst the easiest of all preserves and amongst the most useful.

Ingredients

  • 1.5 kg redcurrants, on their strigs, stalks and leaves picked out
  • 300 ml water
  • 900 g granulated or preserving sugar, approximately (use 450 g per 600 ml of strained juice; see method)

Method

  1. Put the redcurrants, strigs and all, into a preserving pan with the water. Bring slowly to a simmer and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, crushing the fruit against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon, until every berry has burst and the pan is full of pink pulp.
  2. Scald a jelly bag or a double thickness of muslin in a sieve, suspend it over a large bowl, and pour in the pulp. Leave it to drip undisturbed overnight, or for at least 8 hours.
  3. Measure the strained juice into the cleaned pan. For every 600 ml of juice add 450 g of sugar. Warm gently, stirring, until every grain of sugar has dissolved before the liquid comes anywhere near the boil.
  4. Bring to a full rolling boil and cook hard, without stirring, for 6 to 8 minutes. Take off the heat and test on a chilled saucer: the drop should wrinkle and hold a crease when pushed with a fingertip. Skim the pink foam from the surface.
  5. Pour at once into warm, sterilised jars, filling to the brim, and seal immediately. Leave to cool and set undisturbed, and store in a cool, dark cupboard.

Notes

Expect roughly 900 ml to 1 litre of juice from this weight of fruit, and therefore three or four medium jars. The pulp left in the bag need not be wasted: return it to the pan with a little more water, boil for 10 minutes, and strain again for a second, paler jelly, good for glazing tarts. Whitecurrants make a jelly of the same firmness and a pale amber colour, and a proportion of them softens the acidity if you find pure redcurrant too sharp. A sprig of rosemary or a few crushed juniper berries simmered in the juice and lifted out before potting makes an excellent jelly for venison. Serve with roast lamb, mutton, venison, hare, and game birds, spoon into pan gravies, or use as the base of Cumberland sauce.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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