Habanero Jelly


 

Shawn W

TVWBB Emerald Member
I found this recipe here and made three variations of it with fruit. I thought some of the members who like Texas Pepper Jelly might be interested as well.


Habanero Jelly
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Yields: 7 half-pint jars

Ingredients:

3 large fleshy orange bell peppers
5 to 10 ripe habanero peppers
1 1/2 cups distilled white vinegar
7 cups sugar
9 fl oz liquid fruit pectin (Certo or equivalent)

Remove stems, seeds and membranes from all peppers (use gloves when
handling the habaneros...yes... seriously... USE GLOVES!). Put peppers
and the vinegar in a blender and process until smooth. Combine
pepper-vinegar puree and all the sugar in a non-corrosive pan. Bring
to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for twenty (20) minutes.
Remove from heat and strain through cheesecloth into another pan. Add
pectin and bring to a full rolling boil while stirring. Boil about one
minute, remove from heat and ladle into sterile jars.


Shawn W Comments:

I didn't like using the cheesecloth, it took too long and held too much out. Instead liquify by leaving in the blender a little longer, then gently force it through a metal sieve with a spatula after the cooking step. In this manner, only a couple of tablespoons of the thickest pulp was withheld. I lost more than a jar worth using the cheesecloth.

When prepping the habs I picked the seeds out with the point of a paring knife and left as much of the membrane in as possible. A bit tedious but I believe this is where much of the heat resides in the pepper.

My first batch was pineapple variation but I hadn't found liquid Certo so I used Bernardin powder. It didn't set. Info on the Certo website says to use the brand recommended by the recipe and that even Certo brand powdered and liquid can't necessarily be used interchangeably. I wondered if fresh pineapple caused it not to set but found out in Nicole's Turkey thread it shouldn't have been an issue because it was cooked. A subsequent pineapple batch using liquid Certo worked fine.

I suggest using two pouches of liquid Certo. The first batch I did using liquid Certo I used three pouches as per recipe and found the jelly pretty hard. I would much rather this stuff is softer for brushing on grilled meats.

Consider using a fruit and veggie wash. The one I used is biodegradable, non-toxic and removes pesticides, wax, bacteria and dirt. Peppers from the grocery store have a lot of crap on them.

I stirred it nearly constantly thinking this would help make sure the hot stuff (which I understand to be an oil) stays in the jelly. But if it's not stirred the scum on top will firm up and not pass through the sieve making the jelly a bit more clear. Like wise, running it through a jelly bag or cheesecloth will make it more clear as well.

Skim any scum off the top after filling jars.

I found similar recipes and all but this one had an additional process in water bath for 10 minutes step that this one does not have. I'm not sure if it's really needed for safety or not.

I'm really happy with the results and proud to have done it myself. Another benefit of doing it yourself is that you can customize to your taste. Change or combine hot peppers and fruit. I used 6 habs in all batches and I think the heat level is perfect. It's right now front of the mouth heat as opposed to back of the throat and not painfully hot.


Fruit Variations:
********************
Use bell peppers your color of choice. Omit one bell pepper and add an equivalent amount of desired fruit.

Pineapple Habanero: I used fresh pineapple and orange bell peppers, next time I will use yellow

Orange Habanero: I used orange bell peppers and 1 navel orange plus zest from half of the peel, I checked for seeds and removed as much pith as possible

Berry Habanero: I used red bell peppers and a 4 fruit mix of strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and blackberry


Pics to follow.
 
I agree--this looks wonderful. Your variations look even better. Your blender over cheesecloth suggestion is a good one too.
 
Shawn-- Give me an example, please. When you say
Omit one bell pepper and add an equivalent amount of desired fruit.

how much pineapple, for instance, did you use?
 
I tried to use an equal amount of fruit by volume. I had a chopped bell pepper on the cutting board and I estimated the same amount of pineapple. It might have been more or less, but I would guess it was a bit more.

As Doug says, your mileage may vary.
icon_smile.gif
 
I kinda figured you eye-balled and estimated the volume but I wanted to check. Great pics, btw, and great color in the jellies.
 
Thanks Kevin.

I suppose it would be better at least for recipe sharing purposes to have diced it and measured and maybe for results consistency as well.

I don't expect I'll make any more for a while but if someone else cares to provides an amount they used I'll plug it in to the recipe.
 
You motivate me!
that's great to hear Morgan ... I get motivated as well reading about the fine foods others on this board make. Do you think you will make some?
 
Hi Shawn
Most certainly.
I just made my regular hab sauce which I like to keep around, so I'm OK on the heat front. Rather than buy pectin I think I'm going to make some out of lemons, so effectively this will be more like a marmalade with heat. If it doesn't work out or set up correctly I'll make some using pectin. The idea was to have lemon and yellow habs some shredded lemon rind and finely dice hab for texture. I've seen marmalade made before, it *does* work, we'll see. anyway you've inspired me to go forth and make some pepper jelly of some sort.

morgan
 
OK
I'm letting you know how it came out.

Ingredients:

2 lemons
3 Yellow Habanero peppers
25 ml Cider vinegar
1 pinch salt
1 splash water (never measured)
the correct amount of sugar (never measured)

This was a test, so I kept the amounts very small. The idea was to try to use lemons for the flavour and pectin, it really works.
Method:
remove seeds and membrane from habs and place seeds and membrane in a pan. finely dice the yellow peppers.
remove exocarp (the yellow rind) and reserve. I made sure to leave as much mesocarp (pith / the white stuff) as possible. Slice paper thin and cover with water in the pan containing the seeds and membranes, bring to boil then simmer for an hour, let cool, then bring to boil and simmer for another hour, add rind and let cool. (On edit: I was going to add some shredded rind to the jelly at the end but forgot ... next time)
strain mixture through muslin in a conical strainer. gather up muslin and squeeze the hell out of the mixture, extracting all the squidgy stuff to a clean pan.
Add a bunch of sugar, vinegar, salt and peppers. cook until set.

Mine set up like gummi bear consistency. Next time I'll use a single lemon, I just didn't think it would really work. In fact, I ran a consistency test (dollop on cold plate) by Granny (Mother-in-law, they're good at jelly making and such) who said it was way to firm. Now, my mother-in-law doesn't like *any* spicy food at all, I was really amused when she liked her finger and promptly "hit-the-roof-I'm-on-fire-what-are-you-trying-to-do-you're-trying-to-kill-me"
Oh, it's pepper jelly, don't ----
Everyone is OK
 
Morgan, sorry I neglected to reply earlier.

Really funny about the mom-in-law. I have a similar relationship with my own. Every time she comes over lately it seems I am assaulting her with heat, but she's a pretty good sport.

Great job to do it without adding pectin. Perhaps two lemons would still be OK flavour wise if it wasn't cooked quite as long? Lemon sounds like yet another great combination, as well as decorative rind in the final product.

I'm curious about your choice to use the seeds at some point. My understanding is the heat is in an oil and the only reason seeds are hot is because of contact with the oil bearing membrane. They get some of the oil on them. So was it to extract as much heat as possible from the pepper?
 
Hi Shawn
I had made some pepper sauce with deseeded peppers and didn't get the heat I wanted. This time I did.

I was real surprised that the lemon worked so well in providing the pectin. The taste is nice is like super spicy marmalade, there is a bit of bitter to it.

morgan
 

 

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