Strawberry jam cooked from wild berries is an incomparable treat.
It is much more fragrant than strawberry jam, but has a characteristic feature: wild strawberry is bitter.
Moreover, a specific bitterness can be felt in fresh berries, and cooked with sugar. Why is this happening?
Why is wild strawberry bitter?
Experts say that the whole thing is in small bones, which are in red sweet berries. And most often bitter strawberries collected in pine forests. Is there any connection with the bitter resin of the beautiful pine trees, it is not clear. But the fact remains.
Moreover, bitterness persists during cooking. Why is wild strawberry and wild strawberry jam bitter? The thing again is hard small strawberry seeds. Unfortunately, they do not lose their characteristic bitter taste during the thermal processing of berries.
Someone does not pay any attention to this feature, but someone seriously cares. Experienced housewives, fortunately, have long been using tricks that allow you to make the bitterness of strawberries invisible or even get rid of it.
However, one must understand that there is another explanation for the specific taste. If it’s not about the seeds, then why is wild strawberry and wild strawberry jam bitter? The fact is that not a berry can bitter, but sugar burnt as a result of inept cooking. If it is burnt during caramelization, then the jam will certainly be bitter.
How to relieve wild strawberry jam from bitterness
There are several ways to get rid of forest bitterness and cook a “normal” jam with a traditional taste. Some methods may seem strange, but they really work! Despite the fact that forest strawberries are bitter because of the bones, you can remove this aftertaste like this:
• when cooking, add a handful of red or black currant to the syrup;
• boil strawberries with a small amount of blueberries or lingonberries;
• to put a silver baguette (spoon, fork) during cooking jam directly in a bowl with boiling berry syrup;
• cook jam with a large peeled carrot.
Mix with other berries gives strawberry jam an additional shade of taste and aroma. But the specific bitterness goes away.
The easiest way for those who want to maintain a natural strawberry flavor is to put carrots in a bowl when cooking. The taste of orange root vegetables will not affect the aroma of the final dish. One vegetable is enough if the volume of jam is not more than 2.5 liters. When the berries darken during cooking and the foam disappears, the carrots need to be removed and discarded. Usually this happens half an hour after the start of cooking.
It’s important not to digest the jam: in this case, you will not be able to get rid of bitterness. To avoid burning, it is better to cook strawberries in one step.
If the hostess is worried about the question of why the wild strawberries and forest strawberry jam are bitter, she can do without cooking. A great way to harvest is to simply sprinkle the berry with sugar and put it in the cold.
You can also try a five-minute jam: bring the berry and sugar to a boil, simmer for 5 minutes, pour into sterilized jars and roll up. Cool in the usual way, that is, upside down, and taste.
Another unusual way to cook strawberry jam - repeat five-minute cooking for several days until the delicacy acquires the usual density for any strawberry jam. The scheme is as follows:
• start cooking in the morning, bring to a boil, cook for five minutes;
• make jam in the air under the sun, tying the container with gauze;
• bring into the room in the evening;
• repeat the process in the morning;
• Repeat cooking until the jam acquires the desired consistency.
Stir the contents of the bowl several times during cooking to avoid sugaring.
Wild strawberry jam recipes without bitterness
To prepare a traditional five-minute jam, you need to take the following ingredients:
• three glasses of wild strawberries;
• half a glass of red currant;
• a glass of white sugar.
Sort the berries, rinse (very carefully) with cold water. Pour strawberries and currants with sugar and leave for a while. When the berry gives juice, bring to a boil, stirring slightly, so as not to burn, and removing the foam. When the syrup boils, cook for exactly five minutes and immediately pour into banks.
The second recipe avoids sugaring (this is a common problem that housewives face when cooking wild strawberries). Ingredients:
• a liter jar of strawberries;
• one and a half glasses of sugar;
• half an orange.
Sort the berries, fill them with sugar and set aside for a day. Strawberries should give juice. You need to cook it in three steps. Bring the syrup to a boil, boil for five minutes, remove from heat. If foam appears, remove it.
After 15 minutes, turn on the fire again, repeat the five-minute cooking, turn off the fire. Squeeze the juice from the orange, pour in the jam and boil the mass a third time. Arrange in jars, roll up and cool under a thick old blanket. It is better to store such jam in the cold so that it does not deteriorate.
Despite the specific light bitterness, it is forest strawberries that have a fantastic unusual aroma. In addition, getting rid of bitterness is quite simple, if you use proven methods.
