Sunday, May 29, 2005

Ume (Japanese Plum) Jam


Plums from the Sunday Market

This is a small jar of jam I made from Japanese plum (Ume) for the first time. I'm not sure if I can call it a success, though.

These are not sweet plums. (Sorry, I didn't make it clear in the first place.) Ume plums are sour even after they turn orange and look ripe, and we don't eat them raw. We make umeboshi (pickled Japanese plums) or fruit wine out of them, and for that purpose they don't have to be ripe -- we use them when they are green and immature. It is said that immature Japanese plums contain poisonous substance a little, but being pickled for a long time or being in alcohol for a long time, I guess they become detoxified.



Ume Jam and my Hand-Made Label

Anyway, when I googled for a Japanese recipe of Ume jam, I found, on almost every site, comments like: "Ume jam is sooooo good! Its refreshing smell and the combination of sweet and sour taste is wonderful! " "Even anyone who doesn't like any kind of fruit jam will love this" etc. etc. Most of recipes said you have to soak immature ume plums in salt water overnight (apx 3 hours for ripe, orange-colored ume), and repeat boil-drain procedure a few times, carefully removing the foam-like dirt that comes out from ume plums while boiling. I thought those were the necessary procedures for removing the strong harshness.


Ume Jam on Yogurt

Now I'm not quite sure if I did that part of the preparation thoroughly. Because the ume plums I bought this time looked ripe, I soaked them in water for 3 hours and I boiled them once, drained, and boiled again and drained again. When the plums softened, I removed all the seeds. The rest was a straightforward jam-making procedure... boil them in water with sugar (50 to 90% of the weight of the seedless plums, they said).

The jam didn't turn out so wonderfully as said in many websites... it was OK, but with a little harshness remaining. Maybe I should have soaked them in water longer and repeated the boil-drain procedure a few more times... Or maybe, instead of boiling it down until thicken by itself, I should have added more water for that amount of plums and use pectin to make the runny jam gel.

I guess this time I did a better job making the label than making the jam itself ;P I cropped and resized the photo on top of this entry, gave it some retouch, added the text on it and printed it out. I had fun indeed.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

obachan;
Apricots? Japanese pears? I'm lost...looks good, though....plums? to make umeboshi?
I could guess all day....ha ha 

Posted by carlyn

Anonymous said...

Hehe.. those are plums, but I didn't make umeboshi :) 

Posted by obachan

Anonymous said...

wahhh so lucky to get so much fresh fruits. such exotic fruits are very expensive in malaysia 

Posted by babe_kl

Anonymous said...

the plum jam looks good. and with yogurt ? i have never thought eating yogurt with jam. ohh...thanks for idea. 

Posted by Patrick Leong

Anonymous said...

These plums are usually very sweet.. but I seem to have a mental problem with green or yellow fruits-- my mind keeps telling me "sour" thats whyI never buy green grapes nor eat them.
Do you have to peel the skins before you mke the jam?? I would love to make some plum preserves this summer. 

Posted by keona

Anonymous said...

hey obachan!
I have never heard of plum jam before? Is it difficult to make? I have had plum wine though. Sorry but those fresh plums look like they would make really good umeboshi. 

Posted by kyle

Anonymous said...

> babe_kl --- Imported exotic fruits are very expensive here, too. I guess fruits like mango or coconut are a lot less expensive there. I envy you…

> Patrick --- Do give it a try. It’s really good. I like it with unsweetened yogurt.

> keona --- Well, these Japanese plums (Ume) are not sweet, so your hunch was correct. For making this ume jam I didn’t have to peel the skins, but I’m not sure about plum (sweet kind) preserves…I’ve never tried making it. Sorry.

> kyle --- Plum (Ume) jam is not so popular yet, but gradually being so by word of mouth, I guess. We still don’t see them on the shelf at supermarkets very often, but more and more cooking magazines and websites have ume jam recipes these days. 

Posted by obachan

Anonymous said...

hahaha so i guess we win some, lose some eh? 

Posted by babe_kl

Anonymous said...

I guess so :) 

Posted by obachan

Anonymous said...

Hi

I have a bottle of Ume vinegar. Do you have any suggestions on what to do with it

Thanks 

Posted by Pat

Anonymous said...

Hi Pat,
I haven't tried Ume vinegar before and I don't know what it tastes like...but my hunch is you can probably use it for salad dressing or ume drink.
I've heard of a dressing made from ume vinegar and sesame oil, or ume vinegar mixed with sugar, mirin, shoyu, dashi stock etc. (Sorry I don't remember exactly.) And if the ume vinegar's taste is not too far from regular vinegar, maybe you can mix sugar, honey and water to make a refreshing drink like we do with regular vinegar???
Sorry if my suggestions were completely off the wall... ;P 

Posted by obachan

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your ideas Have a good day 

Posted by Pat