Rosella Jam

this For later use

I love finding fruit and vegetables which I haven’t come across before and this one caught my eye when shopping,so I prepared Rosella Jam

I did have to put out a call on FB as I didn’t know the name or what I could do with it.  Luckily one of my Indonesian friends came to the rescue.  Once she told me the name I recognized it as having had a tea made from the dried fruits. After some scouring of the internet, I came across a recipe for jam. I only made a small amount as I was not familiar with the fresh fruit or the taste.

Ingredients:
500g Rosella fruit, Seedpod separated from the Calyx and Bracts
Approximately 2 cups sugar depending on the exact weight of fruit
Approximately 2-3 cups of water

Method:
Firstly I soaked the fruits in cold water for about 20 minutes so as to not only clean them but remove any insects.
Then It was a case of removing the seed pod from the inside of the fruit.
Covering the seed pods with water and cooking them for about 20 minutes.
The seed pods contain naturally produced pectin.
I simmered these for about 20 minutes and then removed the pods and disposed of them aka binned them.
I weighed the flowers before cooking them and then I measured exactly half their weight of sugar.
The rosella flowers were then added to the cooking water in which the seed pods were cooked and the fruits cooked until they were softened and the liquid starts to turn syrupy which took about 10 minutes I then added the sugar and cooked the fruit until it softened and turned jam-like.
Remove from the heat and put in sterilized jars.
This makes a very nice fruit preserve and one which I will definitely make again.

Prepared, tried, and tested Carol Taylor