Mango Jam Recipe and a Handy Hint

I am sitting on the deck of our friend’s, Bob & Roberta of recent banana fame, house doing this post – don’t be jealous! Although there is good reason to be, this is the view …

The air is full of the sound of bananakeets, pretty little birds of the eponymous song “Yellow Bird High in Banana Tree”, who are feeding on the sugar water left out for them. 

Sometimes a humming bird whirs up and takes a drink too.  

The temperature is, I don’t know, 80 ish but lovely and breezy so just about perfect.  Oh .. and Bob has just brought me some fresh coconut off his tree, sweet and delicious.

Its great meeting up with all my old friends.  Bob & Roberta, Ian and Kathy and Lynne and Lash and lots of others.  Lynne is Canadian and her husband, Lash, is from here.  They run a bar called Dove Love and Tuesday nights are Canadian Night.  This means that if you have heard of Canada or ever met a Canadian you are eligible to go along for a really quirky, good food, lots of chat and drink sort of evening.  It felt so much like old times it was as if I’d never been away.  The very fact that ex-pats here have chosen to live on a small Caribbean island means that are out of the norm and of course and that’s the way I like it!  Glad to see you – you bunch of weirdos.

I haven’t had any lunch at home yet but breakfast is another matter.  Roberta, is a great cook, especially in the homely baking and preserving type stuff.  Yesterday we had homemade “English” muffins (in England we just call them muffins) with homemade maple syrup from Bob's cousin and today we had Roberta's lovely homemade bread with her homemade preserves; Pear and Anise, Mango Jam and Chokecherry Jelly.   All three are excellent.  

I have heard of chokecherry of but never seen one.  It is a sour wild cherry but when cooked up with sugar and made into jelly it is excellent stuff.  The mango jam, however, is my favourite so here’s her recipe, I’m afraid it’s in American so you’ll have to do the conversions yourself, sorry!

                                                                                      

Mango Jam Recipe - with handy hint ...

5 cups fresh mango flesh – coarsely chopped

6 cups white sugar

1 teaspoon of butter

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice

Half a cup Certo pectin (I wasn't sure this was available in the UK but looked it up
online and it is)

~   Mix together the mango, sugar, lemon juice and butter in a large non-reactive pot and bring to a boil, stirring till the sugar has dissolved.

~   Turn down the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

~   Return to a boil for 1 minutes, add the pectin, and boil for another single minute but no more.

~   Set aside.

~   Have ready clean warm dry jam jars. 

~   Spoon the jam into the jars.

~   Cool, cover and refrigerate till needed.

The handy hint is the adding of butter to the jam. Like the famous pouring of oil on troubled waters this stops the jam frothing up and boiling over and there is no need to remove scum from the surface as, according to my friend, there isn't any.

Hopefully we shall be moving onto our boat tomorrow but there is a bit of a problem – some git seems to have stolen our dingy, so its not complete paradise. 

So there, just a quickie whilst I can borrow Bob and Roberta’s internet connection.  I’ll do it again as soon as poss.  Here’s a nice pic from the airplane for your delectation.