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Black Naga Marmalade

Kinda bored yesterday, so thought I`d make something in the jam/jelly arena, as I just got some tremendous Brain Strain Jam and CGN21500 jam from PexPeppers.
 
So, I went and found a few Black Nagas in Pepperproblem`s freezer and thought I`d keep it to just those.
 
Ingredients.
 
21 Black Nagas, whole, not de-seeded
1.5 cups cider vinegar
1 cup wildflower honey
5 cups brown sugar
Finely grated zest and the juice of 1 large orange (I picked it off our tree)
1" square piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
1 tablespoon Bell liquid fruit pectin
 
This makes roughly 2 pints of marmalade.
 
 
Put Black Nagas and vinegar in a blender and blend on low speed for around 2 minutes. Do NOT put your nose in there to smell it! I found out the hard way that it is a bad idea. 
 
Put that mixture in a very large pan and grate the zest and ginger straight into the pan, then add the orange juice. Heat until hot but not boiling. Add the honey and stir gently to mix and dissolve. Allow the mix to simmer for 5 minutes or so. Do not put your face near the fumes, another thing I found out the hard way. 
 
Add the sugar and stir very gently to mix and dissolve. Be careful not to splash yourself, it`s hot!!!
 
Once the sugar has dissolved, bring it to a rolling boil. Keep the mixture boiling until you can no longer stop the foaming from reducing with a wooden spoon. This is because you want to get rid of most of the water and once it has gone, the sugar boils and that can`t be knocked down with stirring. Be really careful at this point, as the mixture is about 300°F. 
 
Take the pan off the heat and add the pectin. I used Ball liquid fruit pectin. You do not need much pectin as there is quite a lot in the skins of the peppers. Put the pan back on the heat and boil for 1 minute, stirring continuously so that the pectin dissolves. 
 
Ok, you`re done. Process the mixture while still extremely hot as you would for any type of canning. 
 
These were the peppers I used
 

 
Before cooking, this is the mixture showing it still has some texture and is not smooth,
 

 
Just before canning this is the mixture
 

 
And the final product,
 
 
Hmmm. 21 nagas in two pints of jelly. I bet that will be a little warm.
 
Looks great though. Too bad I have no interest in eating PB&J as an adult because that looks scrumptious.
 
PepperDaddler said:
What would you use a jam for except just bread?
You can use it to glaze meat - pork and ham especially, but this one would work with beef and chicken as well.
 
We also eat it on celery, where you fill in the middle of the celery with cream chess and smother the jam on top. 
 
Another use is in braising different meats. By adding some to the braising liquid you get the flavors to go into the meat a little and you can make a sauce with the braising liquid by boiling it down to reduce the volume. I love to cook Tongue this way, as it`s one of my favourite meats. Beef, Lamb or Pork tongues work equally well. 
 
You can make a topping for ice-cream with jam of any sort, but chili jams are especially good. Add some of the chili jam to a pan, heat gently and add fresh fruit. Soft fruit works best - raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, cranberries, blueberries etc etc etc. A chili-hot topping on ice cream is awesome and blows peoples minds. I`ve made chili ice cream and sorbets in the past, which are fantastic. 
Jeff H said:
Hmmm. 21 nagas in two pints of jelly. I bet that will be a little warm.
 
Looks great though. Too bad I have no interest in eating PB&J as an adult because that looks scrumptious.
It is a tad warm, yes.  :fireball:
 
That looks and sounds amazing. I tried this tonight. It's the first time I've ever made jam/jelly/marmalade... I deviated from your recipe a tiny bit... I used only the peppers I had available: (combo of 15 scorpion, 11 cayenne, and 8 tiny jalapeño). I also only had small oranges so there was some guess work there.
 
I have some tips for anyone else that's also never made anything like this before.
 
1) Watch the f**king pot!
2) Wear gloves when your hands are over the steam!
3) Have a funnel large enough for pouring from the pot.
4) Watch the f**king pot!
 
UHafp9y.jpg

.... watch the pot.
 
Don`t like to see that. Hope you are Ok and nobody got burned, either from the fire or the incredibly hot mixture. 
 
Nope. I caught it quick enough. My hands burn a lot from cleaning it, but I learned a valuable lesson. Considering the "holy shit" factor, I'd say everything wound up rather well. Hopefully I managed to follow all of the other directions well enough and tomorrow I'm throwing this on a PB&J. :D
 
Time for my extra notes. It was really good, but it's missing "something". The cayenne pepper flavor sticks out the most. The jalapeños added a bit of a veggie taste to it. The scorpion peppers weren't fresh and I think that destroyed what would have been awesome.
 
So next time...
I'll make sure it's with fresh scorpion peppers and probably about 5 more of them.
I might mix white and brown sugar instead of all brown.
Probably add another orange or two.
Throw the ginger in with the blender.
Deseed the peppers.
I will watch the fucking pot!
 
That's what *I* plan on doing next time anyway. This stuff is amazing as the J in a PB&J. It's also great on crackers.
 
Later this week (or next) I plan to use this as a glaze on a ham and then throw it in a smoker with some cherry wood. I thought about mesquite, but cherry is more suited for sweet things. I'm excited.
 
THANKS for this recepie!!!
 
My latest recipe, made the same way, is,
 
50 7-pot douglah (yep, fifty).
4 cups vinegar. 1/1/1/1 red wine/cider/balsamic/white
2 cups clover honey
2 cups brown sugar
4 cups white sugar
zest from 2 limes
Juice from 2 limes
4 tablespoons liquid pectin
 
After boiling the mixture and just before canning, add 2 tablespoons of vanilla extract and stir with a wooden spoon.
 
Photos of the finished product to follow. 
Fifty douglas, into 4 pints of 7-pot douglah and lime marmalade. it`s quite hot, for some reason.........
I toyed with the idea of removing the seeds, but in the end just couldn`t bring myself to de-seed 50 douglahs.  :fireball:
 
 

 
 
 
meinchoh said:
Nigel, buddy, you're just not well!  :crazy: ...Is that concoction flammable??  :onfire:
It`s funny you should say that. As the mixture was boiling, it actually looked like there were blue flames on the surface of the liquid. I tried to photograph it, but it didn`t work out. I`m sure the effect was because of the pigments in the douglahs reflecting blue light in those specific conditions, but it was really cool. 
 
My last batch with 21 Black Nagas in 2 pints only rated a 7/10 for heat by my taste tester, so I thought I`d better up the ante a little bit. You think i went a tiny bit too far............ :rofl:
 
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