Last Saturday I found myself in possession of various kilograms of "Greengage" plums. As it turns out, a branch of one of the trees in our orchard fell down and we found ourselves with two big crates of plums that weren't ripe enough to eat.
They ended up divided among all my family and my mum, my grandma and I made jam with them, everyone by herself. Today's recipe is similar to how they use to do it, with a twist.
I investigated a little bit in Pinterest and, although they did not usually use this particular type of plum, there were a lot of recipes with golden and purple plums. Some of those were spiced with some kind of herb. So taking tips from different sites and with my mum's base recipe, here it comes:
Plum
and Lavender Jam
Ingredients
- 1,10 Kg plums, “Greengage”
- 550g white sugar
- 1 Tbs dry Lavender flowers
- a piece of cloth
- a piece of string
Preparación
- Put a tablespoon of dry lavender flowers in the piece of cloth and tie it with the string in the form of a little sack. Make sure it is well tied in order to avoid any flower to escape from it into the jam.
- Stone the plums and cut them into quarters.
- Put the plums, sugar and the little lavender sack in a big pot (bear in mind that the mix will grow while cooking).
- Cook over very low heat during, approximately, 1 hour and a half. Keep stirring with a wooden spoon in order to avoid the sugar to burn.
- To see if the jam is done; drop a bit of jam into a plate and let it cool down. Run your finger over it and, if the jam wrinkles slightly, it's done.
- Cover the pot and let the jam sit for a night to let the flavors set.
- Throw the little lavender sack away and store the jam in glass jars.
As you can see, it's really easy; you just need time and patience. You can eat it as you please; with a piece of buttered bread, a spoonful in your yoghurt, as an extra with your favorite cheesecake... The sweetness of the plum, combined with the soothing aroma of the lavender flower it's great, both for sweet or savory plates.
An example of how well it works with savory is the following "tapa": "Montadito" of grilled goat cheese with our jam. A "montadito" is a kind of tapa very typical from the Basque Country, which consists of a slice of bread that has something (anything!) on it. It can be cheese, some kind of sausage, spanish omelette, anything you can think of that can go on a slice of bread!
It's really easy; just slice some bread, put a generous piece of goat cheese on it and grill it until the cheese has turned slightly golden. Then put a spoonful of plum and lavender jam on it and serve warm.
Delicious!
Here's the pdf with the jam recipe.
Anna
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