Jamming to flavours

Food trips

Waking up in the morning to the smell of fresh coffee is something else. Pair that hot cuppa with a crisp toast that has a spread of delicious jam and you’re set to start your day.

With the food arena becoming innovative by the day,jam flavours are also expanding and how. Food lovers in the city are experimenting with these unique flavours to give their morning a delicious twist.

Monika Manchanda, owner of ‘Sin-A-Mon’, enjoys making her version of jam to spread on bread. She says, “I’m not a huge jam fan to be honest. I mostly make it for my family. But to make it interesting for me to enjoy, I like to make a combination of sweet and spice.”

She has prepared flavours like ‘strawberry balsamic pepper jam’, ‘cherry and chia seeds jam’, ‘mango and kaffir lime jam’ and the latest ‘ginger grape and wine jam’.
“I don’t like to have something too sweet on my bread. I usually balance that out with herbs or spices. Since I also make it at home, it doesn’t stay as long as the store-bought one,” she says. Since it’s the season of peaches, she hopes to try a unique combination with the fruit. So far, she hopes to combine that with jalapeno.

Another enthusiast is Priya Shiva, a food blogger. She has created jams like ‘strawberry and orange’ and ‘papaya and apple’. She says, “My family loves the different jams that I make at home. My son will have anything that’s red in colour with his bread. That’s why I also made a ‘jamun plum ginger jam’ recently. I grew up eating a lot of jam as my mother would prepare it at home. I wanted my children to experience that as well.”

While Priya’s mother followed the traditional way of making jam — cutting the fruits, soaking in sugar overnight and boiling it in water the next day — she prefers to use technology to make her work easier. She explains, “I prefer using the microwave to make the ingredients softer. It also takes less time and gives me great results.”
Pectin is the preservative added to jams to make them last longer. While the mass produced jams use the chemical version of it, home bakers prefer to use natural pectin from citrus fruits as the substitute. Hema Mahesh, founder of ‘Nature in a Bottle’, is one such person who prefers to use natural ingredients.

She says, “I wanted to give my family chemical-free products. That’s why I started making my own versions of jams. Most of the fruits you buy have an inbuilt pectin in them that we can extract and use to make our product.”

She has made ‘kiwi and jalapeno jam’,  ‘prunes and orange sugar-free jam’, ‘jackfruit and jaggery’, ‘red jalapeno and strawberry’ and ‘mango and orange jam’. “There are certain flavour combinations that you use as a marinade to make fish as well. The spicy flavoured jams can be used as ice cream topping and the sweeter ones can be used to make milkshakes as well,” she says.

So, whether it’s the classic jam flavours that you love or want these unique combinations, let’s get jamming!