Walnut jam: how to cook walnut jam correctly

The healing power of walnuts has been known since ancient times; the benefits of consuming walnuts were first noticed by the legionnaires of Alexander the Great during their military wanderings in Asia. Walnut kernels are consumed raw and treated with nut oil and shell decoction. Green walnut jam is of great benefit in the treatment of a number of diseases. This article contains everything about the beneficial qualities and dangers of green nut jam, recipes with step-by-step photos.

Walnuts: nutritional composition

Walnut fruits contain a number of nutrients and vitamins that have a beneficial effect on the human body and help maintain health. Rich set of vitamins C; RR; IN; vital acids; a number of useful minerals that improve body function and appearance. The phytoncides contained in nuts guarantee protection against pathological bacteria.

Nuts suitable for jam

Unripe nuts have an unpleasant taste, they are bitter and are not recommended for consumption raw. Jam made from green walnuts is not only tasty, but also a healthy delicacy that can treat many diseases. It is useful to use for persistent insomnia; migraine; headaches in weather-dependent people; stress; depression; pregnancy complicated by iodine deficiency; childhood rickets; overstrain of the body and persistent physical fatigue.

Particular care should be taken when consuming green nut jam if you have diabetes mellitus, peptic ulcers of the gastrointestinal tract, or allergic manifestations; obesity.

Walnut jam - benefits and harm to human health

In ancient times, walnuts were known for their healing powers, capable of fighting a variety of ailments. Thus, soldiers in the army of the great conqueror Alexander the Great successfully used nut kernels to prepare oil that promotes wound healing. Indeed, these amazing fruits are rich in nutrients and minerals: fats, proteins, unsaturated fatty acids, carotene, iron, iodine, cobalt, magnesium, zinc, copper, essential oils, tannins. In addition, walnuts contain a number of vitamins - B1, B2, C, PP.

What are the benefits of walnut jam?

Due to the high content of valuable substances, jam from young green walnuts is extremely useful for:

winter and off-season vitamin deficiency
hypothyroidism
liver diseases
insomnia
colds and viral diseases
nervous disorders
cardiovascular diseases and hypertension
the need to remove cholesterol from the body
long-term mental activity – brain function improves

Harmful effects of walnut jam

Despite the obvious benefits of this wonderful delicacy, it should be consumed with caution and in moderation. Jam prepared in violation of technology can be harmful to human health. In addition, an excess of this sweet dessert can lead to excess weight due to its high calorie and nutritional content. Therefore, nut jam is contraindicated for people with diabetes, allergies, and small children.

Technology for making jam from unripe nuts

Preparing nuts for making jam takes a lot of time and requires special care. Nuts are selected at milky ripeness, when the shell has not yet begun to harden. You can check ripeness with a regular puncture using wooden skewers or toothpicks. If a wooden skewer easily penetrates the skin of an unripe nut, plunging deep into the pulp, such a nut is suitable for making jam.

The nuts are carefully sorted by size - only fruits of the same size are suitable for jam.

Advice! It is worth choosing whole fruits without damage; There should be no dark or rotten spots on the skin. Typically, in the milky ripeness phase, nuts are collected from trees in June or early July.

The utensils for cooking jam are of great importance - you should choose pans with a heavy, thick bottom made of stainless steel; in extreme cases, enamel cookware will do. Containers made of copper or aluminum are absolutely not suitable for making jam. In copper basins, when cooking jam, vitamin C is destroyed, aluminum containers are destroyed by exposure to excess acid.

When cooking, jam should be stirred with a glass or wooden spoon to avoid burning.

Advice! Preparing nuts before making jam takes a lot of time, this operation should be carried out with special care - the healing power of the jam depends on the correct preparation of the fruit.

Soaking green nuts in cold water - immerse the nuts in a container with clean cold water for about 2 days, changing it every 3-4 hours.
Keeping nuts in a lime solution - immerse the nuts in lime water for one day, which helps remove the bitterness in the kernels.

Mortar
Second soaking in cold water - the nuts are pricked in several places with thick needles and placed in cold water for 24 hours.
Boiling - boil walnuts in boiling water for 10 minutes, remove and allow to drain. This completes the operations of preparing fruits for making jam.

Soaking nuts

Armenian walnut jam - a simple recipe step by step with photos

The main feature of Armenian walnut jam is the use of alum, as well as the absence of peel on the fruit. By following our simple recipe with photos step by step, you can prepare incredibly tasty Armenian jam for the winter and please your loved ones with a valuable vitamin-rich dessert. We stock up on patience and young walnuts!

List of ingredients for the recipe for Armenian jam with walnuts:

young walnuts – 100 pcs.
sugar – 3 kg
water – 1.5 l
cloves – 10 pcs.
cinnamon – 10 gr.
cardamom – 5 fruits
slaked lime – 0.5 kg
alum – 75 gr.

How to make Armenian-style jam from young walnuts - step-by-step instructions for the recipe:

First you need to cut the skins off the nuts. Place the peeled fruits in a large bowl.
Fill with cold water and place in a cool place for about six days. In this case, you need to change the water at least four times a day. By the end of the period, the fruits will noticeably darken.
After the last change of water, rinse the nuts thoroughly.
Prepare a lime solution per 5 liters of water, mix and leave to settle. Then strain through a layer of gauze.
Place the peeled nuts in the lime solution for a day, remembering to stir periodically.
We wash the fruits again and make several pricks on each with a fork. Rinse again under running water.
We dilute alum in water (5 l) and bring to a boil. Place the nuts in boiling water and continue cooking for about 10 minutes.
Now you need to drain the water - pour the fruits into a large sieve.
Place the nuts in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and leave for an hour.
Place the spices according to the recipe in a gauze bag.
Boil water, add sugar and boil for a minute. Add the spices in the cheesecloth and continue boiling for another five minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and leave for a day, and then repeat the same steps three times.
At the final stage, boil the jam for 3 hours and remove the spices.
All that remains is to place the hot treat into clean jars and close the lids. When the dessert has cooled, you can take a “sample”.

How to properly make jam from green walnut fruits: methods and options

There are only 2 known methods of making jam, which differ in appearance:

Jam made from fruits with peel is similar to buckwheat honey - it has a thick dark color. To prepare this jam, the fruits are not freed from the green outer skin, which adheres tightly to the unripe kernel.
The composition of peeled nuts ultimately has a light color - this is the so-called “white jam”. In this case, the outer green skin is removed from the nuts.

Removing the peel
When peeling nuts from the top shell, you must use rubber gloves; the pigment contained in the skins can strongly stain the skin of your hands black.

There are many recipes for making green walnut jam, which are often added with spices, citrus fruits or summer berries.

In this article we will look at a detailed recipe from Armenian chefs.

How to make walnut jam. Recipe and some useful tips

Jam made from young walnuts is a rather unusual and incredibly tasty delicacy. For those who have never tried it, it is difficult to understand how such a dish can be prepared. As a rule, it is cooked at home, and in order to get really tasty walnut jam, the recipe must be followed strictly. If you make a mistake at one stage or another, you can end up with a substance that is completely unsuitable for food.

It can be prepared in several ways, but in any case the nuts themselves should be collected at a stage when the hard shell has not yet fully formed. In all recipes, they are soaked in lime to remove the bitterness, and in some, the top part of the peel is also cut off. It is best to prepare any walnut jam (photo below) with gloves on, since it will be almost impossible to wash your hands after contact with iodine-containing juice. In addition, burns are likely.

Walnut jam (recipe with peeling)

To begin with, you should correctly calculate the time when the shell has not yet hardened, and the kernels themselves have already begun to form. This period usually begins at the end of May, less often at the beginning of June, but it is still better to collect them ahead of time, because if the peel hardens, you will have to wait until next year. You can check the softness of the nut with a toothpick, which should pierce it through without much effort. For a kilogram of nuts, take one and a half kg of sugar, 300 ml of water, citric acid, vanilla and lime. First, the nuts are soaked in a lime solution for 24 hours (100 grams of powder per liter of water). Then another 10 days just in the water, changing it periodically. This is done so that all the bitterness goes away and a delicious walnut jam is obtained (the recipe also calls for pricking each nut with a needle or toothpick to make this happen faster).

After this procedure, the fruits are peeled from the upper peel (with a knife, not forgetting about gloves) and boiled in a solution of citric acid (25%) for 20 minutes. Boil syrup from water and sugar, add nuts, boil for 20 minutes, turn off and leave to soak for 10-12 hours, then cook again for 5 minutes, add a little citric acid and vanillin and after 5 minutes remove from heat. Pour into sterile jars and close. When using this method, the mass turns out yellow and contains less iodine than in the next option.

Walnut jam (recipe without peeling)
The amount of ingredients you will need is the same as in the previous recipe. If desired, you can add spices (cloves, cinnamon). After soaking in lime, the nuts are pierced with a toothpick and blanched in water (5-7 minutes), then they are placed in a colander and wait until all the water has drained. Separately, boil the syrup (similar to the previous recipe) and add nuts to it. After the jam boils, turn it off and leave it for two days to soak. Then bring to a boil again, adding spices, lemon or orange zest, and turn off. Place in sterile jars, seal and store in a cool place. This jam turns out to be black in color, very tasty, aromatic, and most importantly - healthy.

Armenian walnut jam

A special feature of this jam is that it is necessary to add lemons or citric acid to the mixture when cooking. Lemon zest gives an unusual taste to jam, and adding lemon significantly increases the content of ascorbic acid in the finished product.

What you need for jam:

Prepared walnuts (peeled from green skins) - about 1.5 kg.
Granulated sugar – from 2 to 2.2 kg.
Ordinary water – 0.5 liters.
Fresh, medium-sized lemons – 2 pcs.
Spices: cloves – 5 pieces; cinnamon 1-2 sticks.

Boiling nuts in syrup
Boil sugar syrup from water and sugar, stirring the mixture thoroughly until the sugar grains are completely dissolved and boil. After boiling, nuts prepared in advance are added to the mass. Squeeze the juice of 2 lemons into the pan. Spices are wrapped in gauze or a special gauze bag is sewn for spices, then they are placed in boiling jam.

You need to wait for the jam to boil and turn off the mixture, which should be left for about 6 hours. The process of heating the container with jam is repeated 3 times. The finished jam is poured into dry, clean jars, sealed with clean plastic lids or rolled up.

Jars of ready-made jam from green walnuts without shells are perfectly preserved in a dark and cool place (no higher than 25 degrees).

Green walnut jam

This version of jam is simple, but tastes no worse than the previous one. For its preparation, green, unripe fruits are used. They contain the maximum concentration of nutrients .

Ingredients:

1 kg of unripe nuts;
1 kg sugar.

It is recommended to collect nuts in May or June: the shell should be soft, but elastic enough to be pierced

Cooking method:

Cut off the ends of the nuts, place them in a large container and cover with water for 3 days. The water must be changed every 4 hours, and the nuts must be stirred as often as possible.
Wash the fruits, cover with granulated sugar and leave for 1 hour. The nuts should give juice.
Pour 1 liter of water over them and cook over low heat for at least 2 hours. Then remove from heat and repeat the procedure the next day, cook for about an hour.