copper preserving pan

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yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 10 7:04 pm Post subject: copper preserving pan

We've just picked about 60lb of mirabelles, the stoner is unpacked ready for jam-making but I've realised my stainless steel maslin pan is packed away in storage.

I do have a beautiful huge french copper preserving pan ( full to the brim with the little plums right at this moment). I've always been wary of using it for cooking acid fruits, and my jam recipe includes juice and rind of several lemons, but if it's traditionally used in France there can't be a problem with the copper reacting, can there?

I bet the pan will have a lovely shine at the end, but is there any health warning I'd need to put on the jam label, or will it affect the taste of the fruit?

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35057
Location: Devon

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 10 7:08 pm Post subject:
Copper isn't very reactive. That's why it's used for water pipes.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 10 7:26 pm Post subject:
My mum used a copper (or something, not stainless steel anyway) preserving pan for years and years. Then an aluminium one. I don't think that I've suffered any lasting preserve-based damage. Others may have different views however.

Bebo

Joined: 21 May 2007
Posts: 12590
Location: East Sussex

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 10 10:04 pm Post subject:
I was under the impression that you were advised not to cook in copper pans unless they are lined. They used to be 'tinned' inside, but the couple that I have now have stainless steel lining.

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35057
Location: Devon

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 10 11:06 pm Post subject:
Looked this up. Copper doesn't react with non-oxidising acids. So you are fine with the bit of citric acid in your fruit.

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Sat Aug 21, 10 11:43 pm Post subject:
Thank you, Jamanda - that's settled then. It sounds very official, your judgement My jam recipe has written in pencil before the ingredients list -' count 250 mirabelles and take the stones out '. . . . , much easier to know at the beginning how many fruits you need for 8 bottles of jam.

Brownbear

Joined: 28 May 2007
Posts: 14929
Location: South West

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 10 5:46 am Post subject:
A 'stoner' - some cunning device for removing stones, I have got that far. How does it work?

Katieowl

Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 4317
Location: West Wales

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 10 8:52 am Post subject:

Brownbear wrote:

A 'stoner' - some cunning device for removing stones, I have got that far. How does it work?

Like this:

https://www.manufactum.co.uk/Produkt/193687/1443683/AluminiumCherryStoner.html

We have one...never used it for 250 of anything...but it does a good job on a bowl of olives (if you can be bothered)

Kate

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Sun Aug 22, 10 10:11 am Post subject:

no, no, no - that would drive me nuts

we have one like these fancy cherry stoners bought many years back for a lot less. Ours has a swivel device for large and small fruits. In fact we have almost all of the types on the Amazon page in an attempt to find the perfect thing.

We used to do a lot of hot-air ballooning in Metz at this time of year, where mirabelles are the main fruit harvest, the local farmers supply shops were full of that kind of gizmo. And big copper pans! In fact we bought the equipment first, then planted the trees to provide the plums, bringing back twenty kilos in a a balloon basket from Alsace Lorraine meant a trailer full of fruit flies by the time you hit the M3.

Looking at all those mirabelles last night OH set to designing an automated stoner where you fire them down a chute and the stones go one way and the fruit the other, but that's not a project to start in August.

sally_in_wales
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 06 Mar 2005
Posts: 20809
Location: sunny wales

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 10 7:24 am Post subject:
we tend to leave the stones in and skim them off as the fruit breaks down in the pan, its always possible one or two will escape but on the whole it works well and we get just about all of them out quite early on in the boiling process

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 10 10:25 pm Post subject: Mirabelle Chutney

As predicted, a lovely shiny copper pan, after making 12 pots of mirabelle and lime jam.
Then the usual pan turned up and we made a mirabelle version of Gill's mango chutney, using some store cupboard bits and pieces instead of the fresh exotics

Mirabelle Chutney

Ingredients

2lb stoned mirabelles
2 slices of the greenest tinned mangoes, diced
! 6 inch dried medium hot chilli, scissor cut finely with a few seeds
2 pieces of stem ginger (in syrup), grated
1 tspn black peppercorns lightly crushed
1 tspn smoked paprika
4 fl oz cider vinegar
juice of half a lemon
8 oz golden caster sugar
2 large garlic cloves crushed
3 tspn salt
1 tspn mustard seeds

With pestle & mortar, mix ginger, garlic, chilli, paprika to a paste, add peppercorns and mustard seeds
Boil together vinegar, sugar and salt. Add the spice paste and cook for two minutes. Put in the fruit and simmer for 30 minutes, Mash half the mirabelles to a pulp and add the lemon juice. Put into sterilsed jars as usual, makes 2 and a half jars.

Very good - but going quickly, so there'll be another double-sized batch this weekend. Along with mirabelle and lemon jelly, and fruit leather.
20 lb of fruits frozen, and the same given away. I'm almost at the bottom of the last basket, but we left the unripe ones on the trees for picking this weekend. And I've just ordered two more red mirabelle trees.

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18415

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 10 10:38 pm Post subject:
mirabelle gin - seriously good stuff.

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 10 11:21 pm Post subject:

I have found a bottle of mirabelle schnapps - thinking of double mirabelle-ing it

After a slosh has gone in the jelly later today.

The perfume of a basketful of mirabelles is wonderful, fills the house, like quinces. None of the preserves really capture that.

Trouble with fruits in alcohol, they become part of the decor of the kitchen and will sit on the worktop for ever. Two year old quince rum for instance.

yummersetter

Joined: 26 Jan 2008
Posts: 3241
Location: Somerset

Posted: Fri Aug 23, 19 11:56 am Post subject:

A wheelbarrow full of mirabelles to preserve somehow.

Looking up the Mirabango recipe I came across this . . . Downsizer archives are such a treat!

'Trouble with fruits in alcohol, they become part of the decor of the kitchen and will sit on the worktop for ever. Two year old quince rum for instance'.

Oh, that makes that 11-year-old jar of unopened quince rum seriously overdue for straining out, then. On the other hand it's preserved well

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45674
Location: Essex

Posted: Sun Aug 25, 19 7:45 am Post subject:
its plumageddon out there, everythings ripe all at once

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