ginger

The Return of The Secret Suppers at Cha! by Kevin

We are back! After our 1 week break we return to Joy of Cha with a Korean Style menu to share with your friends or enemies you treat nicely.

This week we'll be slow cooking large pieces of pork shoulder that will be placed in front of you and 3 other people to pull apart and stuff inside of lettuce leaves with all manner of wonder condiments. I feel that October will be some what of a porky month and I feel that this supper is a bit more of a beer supper that wine. But that's up to you to decide.

 

Rhubarb & Ginger Jam by Kevin

 

So this was the rest of my productive day yesterday. I also count being productive as posting one blog post. >_> Maybe others are more productive. I have about 700g of rhubarb left over from a salad I made for the last supper. It was going on the soft side so it was decided it'd be a jam.

What you'll need:

  • 700g rhubarb, washed, chopped into 2cm pieces
  • 700g jam sugar
  • 80 stem/crystalized ginger, chopped
  • juice of 1 lime

Wash and chop the rhubarb. Place in a large bowl with lime juice and chopped ginger. Cover in jam sugar. You need jam sugar for this recipe because rhubarb has little to no pectin. Coat all the rhubarb with the sugar, cover. Leave for 2 hours, during that time pop back every now and then and give it a shake.

Once the 2 hours is up scoop all rhubarb mix and put it into a heavy based pot and stir till the sugar dissolves. Once the sugar has dissolved bring the mixture up to a boil. At this point the rhubarb will start to break down. The mixture will darken. If you have a sugar thermometer keep and eye out for when the mixture hits 'jam'. If not there's an easy test:

Place a saucer in the freezer at the beginning of the cooking down process, when the jam has been boiling for a while take half a teaspoon of the mixture out and place on the saucer. Give it 30 seconds and you'll see if it jams. If not keep heating.....actually put 2 saucers in the freezer.

Once it has gotten to the point of jam pour the mixture carefully into sterilised jars. Label. Let it cool. Then eat the next morning with the granola you also made while being productive!