Strawberry Hab Jelly

[Phildeez]

I am making a test batch of jelly before my first batch of habs ripens. I have 5 orange habs, a basket of fantastic strawberries, two golden belle peppers, organic raw apple juice, and pectin.

This is based off of a raspberry hab jelly recipe that I modified slightly mostly with random mild peppers instead of 1 more belle:

[font="Verdana][size="2"] 5 habañero peppers, deseeded.
2 sweet gold peppers
2 Hungarian hot wax
3 hot cherry peppers
1 sweet thai pepper
6 ounces fresh strawberries
2 1/4 cups water
1 cup cider vinegar
1 package Pectin
4 cups granulated sugar

Chop up the peppers in a processor until they are chopped up fine. Put all but 1/4 cup peppers in a saucepan with chopped strawberries and water. Bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to simmer and cook 15 minutes.

Press through a sieve or jelly bag. You should have 2 cups prepared juice. Return the juice to a cleaned pot. Add vinegar and reserved chopped peppers. Let cool 15 minutes.
[/size]
Add pectin. Bring to a boil. Add sugar. Bring back to boil and boil hard for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, skim foam.[/font]

I would like to put the raw apple juice into the recipe but I do not want to ruin the sugar content or the consistency. I may do the math and substitute the water and some of the sugar.

Anybody combined strawberries and habs? I am also debating just making strawberry hab sauce, I have a lot more uses for a sauce than a jelly.

 

[rmardis]

I make a jam using 4c strawberries, 1c jalapeno, and only 1hab then follow the instructions on back of the pectin box and also adding a little from another box of pectin. It works great and taste even better. Its a little spicy. My next batch, i am waiting for my peppers to mature more, i am adding more heat. If you want an exact recipe let me know.

 

[muskymojo]

I would think subbing apple juice for some of the water and sugar would be fine. You said this was a test batch. Try it! That's what's fun about cooking! I usually look at several recipes and then make my own based on them.

As far as habs and strawberries, they go great together. I think Brian2112 recently made a sauce.

 

[Phildeez]

I ended up making a strawberry hot sauce using the original amount of assorted peppers and 6 ounces of strawberries. I must say it came out fantastic, I used raw organic apple juice, water, and apple cider vinegar in a 1:1:1 ratio to get the right consistency and sweetness after the first boiling and pureeing. I liked the gold belle peppers to add volume without messing with the flavors, they were more mild than red/orange. I find belle peppers to be the best over carrots/yams/parsnips, which steer the flavor in a certain direction. Belle peppers share the same basic flavor with the hot peppers, minus the capsaicin. I used ginger, garlic, and fresh ground cumin to season it, and sea salt of course.

Pics coming when I get my cord back from the girl, came out nice deep opaque pink. The flavor is so good with the raw apple juice and strawberries. I like the burn a lot better than the 100% habanero sauces I have been making, I am going to try mixing with mild hot peppers again next time, they provided a more instant burn prior to the slow onslaught of the habaneros.

Cheers!
Phil

 

[spongey600]

right on! i might be using this recipe next! i made poor mans jelly! LOL i just infused a douglah in some preserve and it came out great! but will be attempting some sauces/jellies here in the future!

Eric

 

[Phildeez]

Eric, from what I hear that is the best way to get a jelly that "normal" people can enjoy. I would imagine habaneros could overpower a jelly pretty quickly, usually it is jalapenos or similar but I find those jellies to have no heat at all. I want to make a batch this weekend, we will see what is cheap at the market.