Mango Jam Recipe

My morning starts off with 2 pieces of wheat bread toast, spread with some fruit jam on it (usually strawberry) along with a cup of tea. I eat this at work, so it keeps me full for about 2 hours and manages to get me until lunch.

Late Sunday afternoon I realized that we were out of jam and we had already finished the grocery for that week. I did not feel like going to the grocery again and decided on the next best thing which was to prepare it myself! I did not have strawberries at home, but did have some mangoes and so decided to make jam from it. The great advantage of making it at home, is we control the amount of sugar and there is no addition of preservatives or pectin.

This was the first time that I tried my hand at making Mango Jam, but based on experience of making preserves I knew that the preparation was going to be easy. After the fruit pulp is extracted and set on a pot it does not require constant stirring or monitoring and is very forgiving. More sugar can be added any time during the process to enhance sweetness etc. It is one of those few recipes where in you could go wrong with.

At first I did not add the lemon juice as I was not sure if adding tartness to this was a good idea. But then half way through I was checking for taste and realized that it had something missing. So then I added the lemon juice and the taste was complete. So please do not skip on the lemon juice. Once prepared the taste, color and texture are worth dying for. J

Please note that this recipe of Mango Jam is more of a guideline so use it and change it as per individual requirements. I say that because the size of the mangoes, the sweetness or tartness, the juice content can vary. I used 2 mangoes that were juicy and sweet.

Adding cardamom powder is optional, but I love the combination of mango and cardamom. This reminds of the Mango Murabba (Sweet mango relish/ Sweet mango pickle) that my mother used to make. Mango murabba is made by grating green/not to ripe mango and then cooking it over the stove top along with sugar, cardamom and kesar. Goes well with Rotis, Dosas, Idlis and not to forget bread!

Ingredients:

• 2 mangoes (completely ripe) (resulted in about 4 cups of fruit pulp)
• 1 cup sugar (increase depending on the tartness of the mango)
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• ½ tsp powdered cardamom

Method:

• Peel the mangoes and extract the pulp or cut the flesh into small pieces (Toss the pit of course). Do not worry if there are some lumps of the fruits, it will eventually dissolve as the process goes by.
• Take a heavy bottom pan; add the mango pulp on medium heat. Mine had good amount of mango juice and I waited for about 7-8 minutes before the water had evaporated.
• Add the sugar and then mix well. Stir in between and let the heating continue.
• After about 2o minutes when the water content has evaporated, it begins to thicken.
• Add the lemon juice and mix well. Continue for about 10 minutes to cook and allow it to thicken.
• Please note that the jam thickens after it is cooled, so keep that in mind as well.
• Finally add the powdered cardamom, mix well. Allow to cool and store in air tight container.

Tastes excellent with Chapathis, Dosas, Idlis and Bread Toast.