We love a savoury jelly on some soft cheese like brie or goat cheese. With all the garlic scapes, I had to find a jelly recipe. Surprise, surprise, I couldn’t find just one I liked, but a few, so I did a little mashup to come up with a savoury jelly that had all the bits and pieces that I liked. I am not going to lie though, I maybe should have just stuck to one because for the first time ever, I had a heck of a time with my first batch. I did fix it and managed to make some other batches with the revised recipe that turned out great. So here we go.

INGREDIENTS

I recommend a double batch of this to use the full packet of pectin. I just like to cook it in 2 batches so that there is no chance of the jelly boiling over during cooking and making a mess.

• 3/4 – 1 cup garlic scapes finely chopped
• 1/2 cup basil leaves finely shredded
• Bunch (approx. 2-4 grams) tarragon
• Bunch (approx. 5 grams) rosemary
• Bunch (approx. 2-4 grams) thyme
  ***NOTE: The above herbs can be mixed and matched with what you have in the garden. These were the herbs I had available and ready
• 4 cups granulated sugar
• 1-1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 package of liquid pectin
• 1 medium red pepper finely chopped
• 1 cayenne or 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

DIRECTIONS

1. Remove the ends of the garlic scape and chop roughly into 1-2″ sections. Place in a food processor.
2. Roughly chop the cayenne and the red pepper and add to the food processor.
3. Roughly chop all herbs and place in the food processor
4. Ground all of the above until you have a fine chop on all items. Little chunks for floating in the jelly.
5. Add all the ingredients, except the pectin, to a pot and place on medium-high heat. Stir continuously.
6. Bring to a rolling boil (light boil) for approx. 6-10 minutes, or until your jelly has reached a soft gel consistency. You can test this by putting a plate in the freezer prior to boiling and add a dab of the boiled jelly to the ice cold plate in a smear. If it buckles with a skin on the plate, then it has reached the gel point.
7. Add 1/2 a package of liquid pectin and continue stirring at a rolling boil for 1 -2 minutes.
8. Remove from heat and add to prepared jars.
9. Either can them in a hot water bath for 15 minutes, or let cool and place in the fridge to eat within the next couple weeks.

Chit Chat Bit

So this jelly finally turned out great with some tweaking. I am not 100% sure what happened with my first batch, but it crystalized. The second batch I did crystalized almost solid. I couldn’t figure out what was happening, so I looked up possible causes. It looked like either too hard of a boil, which couldn’t be it, because my boil was very soft, and just barely at the boiling point, or too much sugar. Both recipes that I was pulling from used approx. the same amount of sugar, so I didn’t think that could be it. The last culprit could be the pectin I was using. It was technically still good, but it was from last year, so I decided to make it without pectin since I was able to get it to a gel point.

Unfortunately it was too soft a gel for a proper jelly. It was more of a sticky sauce to toss wings in. So I bought a new pack of pectin and added a bit to the not-quite-jelly jelly. It solidified nicely, but was a little sweeter than I wanted it to be. My next batch, I decided to test my new recipe. I decided to reduce the sugar a bit, and use part of a packet of pectin because I wanted the jelly just gelled and not super solid. The 1/2 packet of pectin and the slightly reduced sugar ended up making a great jelly.

This is now going to be an annual jelly that I make. We have already enjoyed a jar, and I have given a few away. I want to try it on some chicken wings or perhaps just smothering a chicken breast with some of it. I feel it will make a good sauce and is still soft enough of a jelly that it would spread nicely over some meat.

Maker beware, your house will smell like delicious jelly for a few days after making this. The herbs and garlic scapes provide amazing aromatics while cooking.