Ground Cherry & Chamomile Jam
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What a lovely mixture of flavors this tasty jam has. We offer a vegan version, without honey, yet full of the sweet sour flavor of the ground cherry and the mild aromatic flavor of chamomile. I think this has become our favorite jam, even over raspberry. Ground Cherries are known by various names like Cape Gooseberries or Physalis, and this year we grew them for the first time in our garden.
Yield: 2 cups
Ingredients:
- 3 cups ground cherries, removed from husks and washed
- 2&1/2 cups sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2-1 lemon, juiced
- 1 cup chamomile tea
Directions:
- Remove the ground cherries from their husks and wash.
- Combine the sugar, water and lemon juice in a pot and bring to a boil.
- Add the ground cherries and allow to simmer until the cherries have burst open.
- Remove the pot from the heat and smash the fruit to insure that it is an even consistency.
- If you find the small seeds unattractive in your jam, then you can push the mixture through a fine sieve, however I would say that these seeds are so small, they are not a problem in the jam.
- Return the pot to the heat, add the chamomile tea and bring to a boil to cook down to the proper consistence.
Notes:
adapted from http://davidmatthew.wordpress.com/(…)
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 12:57 am and is filed under Condiments, Physalis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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This looks absolutely wonderful! Do you have any suggestions for other fruit that might work? As I don’t think that I’ll be able to find ground cherries here in Seattle!
Hi Renai,
Thank you for your comment. This is really yummy. I am surprised that you can’t find them there in Seattle…I think the weather is conducive to growing them there. They grow throughout the mid-west and in other colder climates around the world. The Latin name is psysalis, but they are also called cape gooseberries, pineapple cherries. They are so tasty, and easy to grow actually. This has been the first year that we have grown them in the garden and we’re looking forward to having more next year.
As for a substitute, I would say that regular green gooseberries come the closest in flavor. They are sweet/sour and I think the gooseberry would also lend itself nicely with chamomile. Gooseberries are often pared with elderberry flowers- you make a syrup or infusion from the flowers with sugar water, and then cook the gooseberries in that..also very tasty and makes a nice sorbet. One of the nice things about the ground cherries, is that they ripen now….most other berries all ripen during the summer and you have a great mass of berries, but by this time of the year, there isn’t too much. The little brown husks seem to protect them from the cold so they can ripen to a lovely orange color. I just did a google search (typed ground cherries + local source + Seattle) it seems you have them t a local farmers market.
http://www.seattlefarmersmarkets.org/ripe-n-ready/ripe-n-ready
here’s an article in Seattle news
http://seattlebonvivant.typepad.com/seattle_bon_vivant/2004/08/the_surprisingl.html
http://www.ediblepioneervalley.com/content/index.php/press/press.htm
Well, I hope you are able to get them and try them they are really yummy.
Thank you SO much! I will have to check again! The farmers market near my apartment doesn’t always have the most diverse selection, but if I have time this weekend I will do some more poking around. This just sounds so divine!