Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Recipe

Elena Butuc

My kids have always loved my strawberry jam, which was fine, but I started to feel the need of a fresher taste, a colour more intense and a stronger aroma. I found the solution in rhubarb - a perennial from which only the stalks are used in cooking. It has a strong, tart taste and the flavour is not as intense as to cover the taste and the flavour of the strawberries. Actually, the combination strawberry-rhubarb is not new and quite popular, I haven't invented it myself, I just applied it to strawberry jam.

Rhubarb would be like using a greater amount of lemons, also adding more texture and pectin for a more uniform jelling. You can modify the amounts as you like. I think the right proportion would be 1:1 strawberry-rhubarb.

One last thing - rhubarb is used and recommended in low-carb dessert recipes, so if you like goodies and don't want to feel guilty about it, you should definitely use it!

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Ingredients

Metric US

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Strawberries

1.5 kg

washed and hulled

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Rhubarb

500 g

cleaned and washed

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Sugar

1.5 kg

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Lemon

1 piece

can be replaced with 1 tsp lemon salt

Step by step

Step 1

First of all, we prepare and clean the strawberries and the rhubarb.

From the rhubarb, we only use the stalks, discard the leaves as they are poisonous.

Step 2

I recommend cutting the rhubarb into medium sized cubes and then, if you want to, you can make smaller pieces in the food processor.

Step 3

That's what I did because I only wanted to add rhubarb for the texture for the strawberries to feel better.

Step 4

Place the chopped rhubarb in a big bowl, add in the strawberries. I used the food processor to chop them because the kids prefer the jam. You can put the whole strawberries, if you like it like this.

Step 5

Add the sugar and the juice from a lemon on top.

Step 6

Stir everything with a spoon and refrigerate for 2-3 hours (or overnight), for the mixture to release as much juice as possible.

Step 7

After this time, mix everything well.

Step 8

In order to boil the jam, I use the "skillet method" - just like in the strawberry jam recipe.

So, I take a big deep skillet, I pour in 4-5 ladles from this mixture and bring to a boil.

Step 9

In total, a skillet round takes about 10-15 minutes:

-when it comes to a boil, I turn the heat down and stir occasionally;

Step 10

-then notice that the jam thickens and less foam forms. Now I mix frequently and I turn the heat down a bit more.

Step 11

-it's ready when it's not watery any more and quite homogeneous and it looks like in the picture when you mix.

The entire process lasts about 10-15 minutes, the jam doesn't lose its colour and flavour (this usually happens if boiled for too long), and still it will have a dense consistency because a small amount was boiled in a big skillet. This way, water was able to evaporate much quicker.