Small Batch

I guess one jar is the ultimate in small batch preserving. I didn't want to waste the tasty ripe white peaches I couldn't finish. I have always loved the look of whole round peaches in brandy. I had five peaches, and thought I could fit these in a quart jar, and bring them out as a Christmas or New Years treat. They seem very festive to me. I saw some in a shop once, with pretty star anise tucked in, an interesting, dressy sort of flavor to add to peaches. This is what I did:

First, I peeled them all with my serrated peeler, about which I will not continue to bore you. If you do not have one, you can always dunk your peaches in boiling water, and slide the skin off. If your peaches are very hard (you want them firm, but ripe), you can do them with a regular peeler.

Then, I cut one peach in half to remove the pit (carefully). I cracked the pit with a nutcracker, and extracted the inner kernel, which I put in my jampan with the peaches, 1 1/2 cups sugar and enough water to cover. I brought this mixture to the boil, removed the peaches with a slotted skimmer, and put them gently in a bowl in a single layer. I continued to boil the liquid for 6 minutes, then poured it over my peaches, and allowed them to cool. I put these in the fridge overnight. The next day, I carefully poured the liquid back into the jam pan, added another 3/4 cup of sugar, brought it to a boil, making sure to dissolve the sugar completely, and poured it back over the peaches.

Again, I cooled them, and left them overnight in the fridge, this time for several days. Finally, I put the liquid and peaches back in the jam pan. I sterilized a quart (widemouth) ball jar in boiling water, along with it's lid bits, and brought the peaches and syrup to the boil. I carefully removed the peaches from the boiling syrup with a slotted spoon, and slid them into my quart jar. Happily, they fit.

I then poured 1/2 cup of brandy over the peaches, and arranged 5 star anise near the outside of the jar, trying to be design conscious, and also not to burn myself. I did use my fingers just a little, I'm afraid. I then slowly ladeled the hot syrup into the jar, trying to leave what I gauged to be room for another 1/2 cup of brandy. In with that 1/2 cup of brandy, topped up with more syrup. A long thin boning knife around the edges got rid of the few air bubbles.

The lid bits came out of the boiling water with tongs, and I set the top in place, screwed on the ring lid, and left the jar to cool and seal. Which it did, with a satisfying "ping", which I heard from the next room. When I came in to look, all was as it should be, except that my star anise had all floated to the top, so you could barely see them. Nonetheless, I choose to consider this a very pretty jar, because of the nice round whole peaches.

I have seen lots of recipes which call for the use of the seed kernel of apricots and peaches, and which mention that in large, excessive quantities, these can be poisonous. I felt that if I only used one, I would surely not be at a dangerous level. I left it out of the final jar, so that no one person would eat one. This is probably an excess of caution to the detriment of flavor, in retrospect. No doubt it would have floated to the top anyway.

Postscript: Soaking dried chestnuts in syrup (preserving the already preserved): Yet more along the lines of very small batch preserves to pull out at Christmas: I made 2 eight ounce jars of chestnuts in a rum syrup, using some dried chestnuts I bought in the Strip. I did process these, despite the addition of rum, as they are not exactly a fruit, and I felt they might be less acid than my usual preserves. I gave them 15 minutes in a boiling water bath. Since I only had the 2 jars to do, this was not at all onerous.

I first soaked a generous 1 cup of dried chestnuts overnight- then boiled them in water until they were pretty soft, but not falling apart, and drained them. I fixed up 2 cups sugar syrup of equal parts light brown sugar, water and a vanilla bean, boiled it up a bit. In went the drained chestnuts, which I simmered slowly, for several hours, until the liquid had reduced by half. At this point, the liquid and chestnuts just fit snugly in 2 8oz. canning jars, with but a 1/2" space, which I filled with dark rum. Lids on, I then processed these babies in a stock pot of modest dimensions, for 15 minutes in a boiling water bath. I was not concerned, as I would be with fruit, that the chestnuts would get too mushy, or lose their fresh taste, since being dried, they do not have a fresh taste to begin with. This recipe is based on the one in Better Than Store Bought, a very useful and clever book by Helen Witty, which is, for no reason I can imagine, out of print. I am still looking longingly for a copy of her other classic, Fancy Pantry, which is equally unavailable.

Dried chestnuts are a great boon, when, as these days, fresh chestnuts tend to have a high percentage of wormy or otherwise bad nuts. Good fresh chestnuts are of course delicious, but they are a lot of trouble and fresh ones can be very unreliable. The dried are especially handy for situations where you are already busy-such as making turkey stuffing, and are splendidly creamy and filling in wintery soups. They have a nice old fashioned quality, and keep forever. In Pittsburgh, where they are now available at PA Mac year round, they used only appear at Christmas. If this is the case where you live, you can feel quite confident stocking up then for the year to come.

Comments

[anapestic]

alibris.com has multiple copies of Fancy Pantry. Some are quite expensive, but the lowest priced copies are in the five dollar range.

[Lindy]

Thanks. In return for this nice tip, I recommend to you bookfinder. If you are not aleady familiar with this, it is a collection of a whole lot of new and used book search sites, including small individual bookstores. It's a lot of fun, and can be quite a time eater!
A Libris has some of the same small store listings at a markup.