Green Ume Plum Jam

Green Ume Plum Jam on Yogurt (I know the jam doesn't look green but I used green ume plums) I didn’t have a great success when I tried making ume (Japanese plum) jam for the first time in 2005. I didn’t even think about making it in 2006. Now this year, what triggered me to give it another try was this shot of refreshingly green ume jam on someone’s blog. I thought, “Maybe mine didn’t taste very good last time because I used ripe ume plums. I might have a success if I use unripe, green ones.” So, here we go. Obachan’s ume-jam project. And you know what? I had a success this time! ;) The recipe? It's so simple… cannot be any simpler. 1 kg green ume plums Sugar (70 to 100 % of the weight of the seeded ume plums) This time I stayed on the safe side all the time and didn’t add any twist of my own. To get rid of the harshness, some recipes said soak plums in water for 3 hours and others said overnight, and I chose overnight. Some said boil ume and drain them just once, others said repeat it two to three times, so I did it three times. Then I soaked them in water and changed the water twice. This might have taken away the “wild” flavor of green plums too much, but I just didn’t want any harshness and didn’t want to hide it by adding lots of sugar, either. * The calyx(?-- the brown thing left at the stem end) needs to be removed with a toothpick before cooking the ume. The aroma of cooking ume plums was so wonderful. (It’s strange that I didn’t mention the aroma in my ume-jam post two years ago. Maybe ripe plums didn’t smell so good when cooking?) Seeding the boiled ume plums by hands was a bit messy task, but it was alright. After mincing them with a knife (maybe I should have used an electric blender), I cooked them with sugar without adding any water. I guess the seeded plums weighed about 800 g and the sugar I added was a little less than 600 g. This jam thickens so easily and sets wonderfully (maybe too much) when cooled. Absolutely no need to add pectin or anything. I love this green ume jam with yogurt so much. And here’s my adventure with the jam – spareribs with green ume jam glaze. They were a lot less greasy because of the refreshing sweet-n-sour jam. It was too bad that the glaze didn't keep the taste of ume at all, though…. Categories: Sweets, Japanese