Besides cream soups and carvings, with pumpkin you can make jam bound to delight both sweet and savoury food lovers.
Pumpkin jam can be used for a great number of recipes; try it on bread, topped with crumbled amaretti cookies, use it for tarts and cakes, or serve it with aged and piquant cheeses… it’s a surprisingly tasty combination!
This tasty jam is also vegetarian and vegan diet-friendly.
Ingredients
- 1 kg pumpkin pulp
- 5 tablespoons LIMMI lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 300 g sugar
Preparation
Remove the peel, seeds and fibrous strands from the pumpkin. Weigh 1 kg of pulp,and cut it into small cubes and place it in a bowl. Mix in the sugar, cinnamon and lemon juice, and let everything macerate for about 30 minutes. The lemon juice perfectly preserves the colour of the pumpkin during maceration, and also ensures that the jam thickens. When the time is up, put the mixture in a sauce pan and cook it for about 30 minutes until the pumpkin is very tender (if need be, mash it lightly with a wooden spoon).
While it cooks – without forgetting to check and stir the jam – sterilize your glass jars according to the guidelines of the Italian Ministry of Health.
Once the jam is ready, turn off the burner. If you prefer jams with a chunky texture, skip the next step, otherwise, puree the pumpkin it with an electric mixer or an immersion blender till smooth.
Thereafter, spoon the piping hot jam into your sterilized glass jars, but don’t fill them to the top. Stop when the jam is at least 1 cm below the rim, to ensure a proper vacuum seal. Screw on the tops, and then turn the jars upside-down.
The minimum shelf-life of properly sealed and pasteurized* pumpkin jam is 3 months. Once opened, keep the jar in the refrigerator and use the jam within 10 days.
A practical tip
For a longer shelf-life, after screwing on the tops, pasteurize the jam. Wrap the jars in cloth to keep them from hitting each other, and place them in a stock pan filled with cold water. Bring the water up to a boil. After 30 minutes, turn the burner off and leave the jars in the water. Once they reach room temperature, take them out and store them in a cool, dry place.
