Hot crab apple and chilli jelly recipe
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Hedgerow food, Jam Jelly and Preserves | 113 comments
Everyone seems to be talking about chillies. They are said to trigger “feel good” endorphins and are packed with vitamin A, an immune system boosting antioxidant. Chillies improve the digestive process too as they stimulate the action of the intestine and stomach.
This year I was determined to make crab apple and chilli jelly. My first attempt was so so. There was a chilli tingle when I tasted the juice. I chucked it away. My recipe from Oded Schwartz’s Preserving added 3-4 medium heat chillis. Are these desseded? I’d used three desseded ones. A long foray on the Internet offered no clues. Chop and add your chillis seemed to be the line. So when I simmered my crab apples and chillies a couple of days ago, I left the seeds in. The result was a tasty juice with just the sort of kick I wanted. Hot but not hellish.
Hot crab apple and chilli jelly recipe
Ingredients:
- 600g of crab apples washed and chopped
- 35g of medium red chilli peppers, washed and chopped with seeds in
- 1 litre of water
- White granulated sugar 500g to each 500ml of juice
Method:
- Put the chopped crab apples and chillies in a large heavy bottomed saucepan.
- Add 1 litre of water (they should just be floating). Bring tp the boil and simmer until the crab apples soften and become pulpy (lid on). This took about 45 minutes.
- Strain through a muslin square or jelly bag overnight. (Retain the pulp to make hot crab apple and chilli cheese)
- Add the juice to a large heavy bottomed pan and add the sugar. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. When the juice and sugar has come to the boil remove from the heat and skim well. Return to the heat and bring to a rolling boil until setting point is reached. This took 15 minutes.
- Skim and pour into warm sterilised jars. Oded Schwartz adds a chilli (stalk removed and split once lengthwise) as the jelly is setting. I really wanted to set chillies in the jelly but be warned this is a nightmare. The jelly needs to be setting firmly otherwise the chillies gently float to the surface again, and again and again. I made two jars with chillies and abandoned the rest.
- Update: Following Sarah’s tip (see comments),I added two firey dried chopped chillies to the jelly. Marvellous.
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Hi theer,
Made this recipe last week and it’s proved a big hit! I have a few comments to add.
1) Far too much water quoted which has the potential to dilute the taste and up the boiling time. I doubled the number of crab apples and just about covered them in water.
2) I prefer a slow bake in the oven in a casserol dish for juicing down the apples, means you can stick them in with other things, but that’s just a preference.
3) Funnily enough for the first time ever I had problems with the setting of crab apples. From the same tree I had made plain crab apple jelly, which if anything has set a little too much. The set I have for the chilli (yum, yum) is delicate, which is OK but not as firm as I normally like. I wonder if the chillies have intefered with the full set? Just a thought really, not a problem as such.
Hi all,
I made this crab apple jelly without the chilli last week and it’s gorgeous! I had enough crabs to make another batch so this time I added chopped green Apache chillis. I forgot to put them in with the crabs so I added them to the jars. They cooked instantly, floated and looked very odd, so I sieved them out quickly – lol! I’m hoping that they’ve left their mark nonetheless!
This is a fab site – I can’t get enough of it. Thank you 🙂
I’ve made both the jelly and the cheese this week and its really delicious. Thanks for a great recipe. Next year I need to pick many more crab apples!!
PS – Hmmm… I’m beginning to suspect that the ‘crabapples’ given to me are not crabapples at all, but some other small apple – it was not sour at all (have just tasted some crabapple jelly of someone else’s and the flavour was quite different to mine)… that might explain my problem!
Oh dear. Not sure what I’ve produced.
It was taking a long time to set, but I realised that since I was doing a double batch, I had added 2 l of water and so it might take longer to boil that all off. (So first question: when doubling should I have tried adding only the same 1 l of water before simmering the chopped fruit and chilis?) It also tasted much sweeter than I was expecting… again wondered whether the recipe was thrown off by the extra liquid.
At some point it had the faintest of crinkly marks so I kept it going, but having hope. Finally it seemed it had gotten denser, but not in a jelly-like way – more like very thick syrup and was just slightly chewy to the taste. I’ve jarred it up but wonder whether a) it had too much sugar and/or b) I had it boiling too hard??
Will see what it’s like tomorrow but am disappointed at the prospect of sweet, hot and slightly chewy crabapple and chili syrup! 🙁
Thanks for any thoughts or advice.
Double batch of crabs and chilis simmering on the stove now!
Thanks Fiona for the tip on tasting and then adjusting. The shop didn’t actually have Scotch Bonnets in the end so I used the long red chilis instead, thought they might be on the hot end of medium, so wisely added only 2/3 of the chilis I bought. There’s no way to tell, of course, what the balance will taste like once the sugar’s in, but right now I like the balance of apple flavour and kick so will hold back on the rest and see how it comes out.
I’m still curious – not having made fruit cheese yet – if I squeeze the muslin bag to get as much juice as possible for the jelly, will that decrease the cheese’s flavour?
Right I will pop it back on the stove. So glad I can save it, 7 pints of very wobbly jelly is not good!
Many thanks for your help xx
Hi Faye
Bring the jelly slowly up to simmering point and then to a rolling boil testing every 3-5 minutes for a set. Use spoons from the freezer or ultra cold plates to test for a set then you get the quickest response.
It’s impossible for me to say long distance how long it will take to set.
I used apples for the jame, perhaps I tried to make too much and didnt boil for long enough.
Hold long should I boil to reach setting point? x
Hi Faye
Yes you can reheat the jelly. The purpose of the rolling boil is to evaporate the water in the juice and allow the jelly to set. You should be able to make this with apples too – we have in the past.
I doubt that you’d need pectin unless you used a different fruit altogether. What fruit did you use?