Cooking

Step One: Steam Juicer

A steam juicer is a large kettle with three sections and a hollow column in the middle to carry steam from the bottom water pan up to the top section where the fruit is. The juice drips into the middle section which has a reservoir to collect the juice as well as a tube to drain it. Using one, you never need to strain for seeds or such undesirable matter, so it is a great tool. When making jellies the traditional way, there’s lots of straining and effort to ensure a seedless product. With a steam juicer, you just toss in fruit, cover it, and bring the water to a boil; the steam reduces the fruit, leaving seeds, stems, and tougher bits of the skin behind. I bought one once I moved back East, and this was the first time I’ve had the chance to use it here. I’m so glad I did. I expect I’ll be making some fresh Guava and other tropical juices to perk up this winter because it is so easy and fresh juice is amazing.

So the general process is to rinse off the grapes, stuff them into the top section of the juicer, then to bring the water to a boil. As the juice is released, you drain it into a pot or pitcher and you keep topping-off the grapes.

As you can see in the picture above, the bottom section has water, the middle collects the juice and has an outlet and tube to drain it, and the top holds the grapes. The lid keeps the steam in.

The whole juice making process took about 2 1/2 hours, but that’s because I was not as much of a hawk on the heat as I should have been so there were slow periods. Normally, it should have been about 1 1/2- 2 hours.

The juice starts flowing and the tube gets hot, so you quickly find a way to rig the pot and tube. Once this was full, I dumped most of it into my pot and began the first double-batch of the jelly to make use of the already-hot juice. I’m sure rush hour drivers and pedestrians loved smelling the intense grape smell I was blowing out front; I’m sure most have never smelled such a thing, but those who have likely had a nice flash of childhood or other precious memories, smells are like that.

After steaming for a bit, grapes begin to lose their innards and look like this. There’s lots more to steam out of them, so I topped them off and put the cover back on. Once the final batch was past this point, I tried to be patient, but I realized that I had so many, I didn’t need to cook down the last set. I threw away lots of good grape pulp, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Regrettably, I don’t currently compost, so this was truly wasted.

The second pot is almost full! I got almost three pots of juice, about 6 gallons in total. The large metal pot on the right is the first double-batch of the jelly. I had the jars in the dishwasher, clean and warm, and had lids ready. Not two minutes after I was done collecting juice, I had the canning water bath pot on the stove, with warm water in it and getting full-blast on the big burner so I transferred the jelly to the where the grapes are, stirring it gently as the sugar melted thoroughly and the temperature approach boiling. Once I had a good boil, I reduced the heat a bit, mixed in the pectin and began to stir and mix like crazy, trying to ensure that all bit of pectin spread throughout the jelly. One peril of making double (or triple or more!) batches is that the pectin doesn’t mix evenly and so you get lots of jars that don’t set. My results from this session were that my jelly flows a bit, so it spreads like a dream yet clings to the bread. Not perfect, but quite acceptable, it does its job suitably.

This was the final grape goo in the bottom of the pan, I was still squeezing it a bit to harvest some of the delicious juice, but threw away a lot, like I mentioned above. We have been drinking a lot of this grape juice. It is crazy intense and bursting with vitamins. I’ve since learned that you can take fresh hot juice, put it in a hot, clean canning jar, put the hot lid and ring on it, then flip it over and leave it upside down for an hour to do a simple canning trick that keeps your juice fresh for months without needing to do the full hot-water-canner treatment.

This is the second batch of jelly beginning to heat up – look at that color! Once I had grape juice, I measured the correct amount, added sugar, and pectin and brought it to a boil and canned it in a water bath canner. Then I made this second batch, again being very careful to mix it like crazy after adding the pectin. Next time, I will try using the sugar-free recipe pectin and try reducing the sugar from 7 to 5 cups. I don’t want even that much sugar, but I hate artificial sweeteners and things like stevia don’t taste or feel right for me.  So sugar it is.

The final result – look at that gorgeous color! It’s crazy how purple that juice and resulting jelly are! And so tangy, yum yum yum.  It is a tiny bit runny, but since most uses involve spreading, that’s OK – it isn’t watery, and spreads and holds nicely on bread. I find lots of store-bought jelly too-set so it tends to clump and stick to the knife, fling off on to the table or plate, etc. My product is better, I figure.

My total jelly haul – I had gallons of juice on top of this. I made two double-batches and eagle-eyed readers may notice two pint jars on the left that ended up almost exactly the same – 60% full. One from each batch. Now that’s precision – accidental, I assure you! These will be Christmas gifts and lots of leftovers for us. Perhaps some meatballs will be made around the holidays, that’s always a good use for surplus grape jelly. I’ll send families with younger children an extra jar or two.  Combined with my ginger peach preserves, I’m giving a lot of yum (and yes, sugar…) to folks this year!

This is my label. It was originally a joke in 2011 referring to the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse silliness and zombies were beginning to really take off (again), so… presto! But with the shitheads in charge of so many countries these days, who knows, perhaps it’s time to trademark it and go national as a niche/upscale survival food brand.

I hope you enjoyed this, have a wonderful day and week!

Prepping

Before you begin, locate and stage your tools:

For roasting:

• tongs
• heat-resistant tray (I prefer stainless steel)
• spray bottle with fresh cool water (tap water is fine)

For cleaning:

• clean cutting board
• plate or second cutting board
• sharp knife, small-medium
• gloves
• bowl for the “trash”
• parchment paper (NOT wax!) cut into squares (I use burger patty papers)
• tray or plate to put individual cleaned peppers in the freezer to pre-freeze
• gallon-size plastic bag(s) or vacuum sealing bags

First, I wash/rinse them in the sink and throw away any funky ones beyond rescue.

Get a grill nice and hot (500F or more). Depending on your sensitivity to capsaicin, you may want a mask so you don’t breath in pepper smoke. Clean the grill to ensure there is no leftover food debris or oil. The chiles will be grilled dry.

Roasting

Place the chiles on a clean grill. You do not need oil or anything like that. Close the grill.

After a few minutes, check the bottom of the chiles to see if there’s some good roasting marks. If so, flip and rotate them.

Steam

Throughout the roasting process, spritz them liberally (don’t go crazy but don’t be shy). Steam should instantly appear and make cool sounds and puffs.  This is good – the steam helps loosen the skins.

Cook until all peppers are well-roasted, rotating and flipping and applying more steam.

Smaller peppers will cook quicker, as will those over hot spots, so take care and move the cooked ones to your tray while the rest finish.

Once they are cooked, take the tray indoors to reduce insect issues and cover loosely with foil. Let them steam/rest for 10-20 minutes and then the final stages begin.

Cleaning

Put gloves on and grab a pepper and move it to your cleaning surface.

With the back of a thin knife (paring, for example), lightly scrape the burned skin and all other skin off.

Cut off the stem side and remove any defects.

Carefully cut from the stem side to the tip, only cutting through one layer of the chile.

Now open the pepper and, using the back of the knife, scrape the seeds and the major vein masses. These are major sources of heat, so leave some, to your liking.

Once the inside is in good shape, flip the chile and ensure that most-to-all of the skin is removed. Small black flecks are welcome, but larger pieces are not desirable.

Packing

Place the cleaned pepper on a parchment paper square.  In our household, we call them “squids” for obvious reasons.

Arrange a single layer of squids on a baking sheet or tray and put it in the freezer.

After 30-60 minutes, remove from the freezer. Stack the squids and put them in a large ziplock or vacuum sealer bag. I have limited freezer room, so I freeze them in batches and collect them in a bag until my final freezing step.

Because I roast and freeze chiles once a year, then keep them for that long, I always vacuum seal in batches of 12-20 so when I open a bag, I don’t have 3 months of chiles to eat before freezer burn sets in. Having individually-frozen chiles is a nice treat because you can more-easily separate one or a few without having to defrost a big hunk. Some folks I know freeze them in big blocks and just shave off what they need, but again, freezer burn.

I have had 5 year old frozen chiles and they were still fine, as long as they were vacuum sealed, so for longer-term storage don’t waste your precious produce on non-vacuum tech.

A final note: in the time since I first wrote this draft, the annual “Hatch Chile Days” at Wegmans happened, so I bought a few Hatch mediums and hots, already roasted, and cleaned and froze them. I have a nice two shelves of frozen chiles! I can’t wait to do a few small taste comparisons and yes, I’ll share some recipes and techniques. Chiles are a wonderful, healthy addition to your diet.

A final note – it sure is nice that I can get fresh Hatch chiles one weekend each summer near me; it has become an annual late-August event I begin to long for, come mid-July.

If anyone is curious, I buy my Pueblo chiles at Musso Farms, just East of Pueblo on US-50. They do ship!