So, because God wants us to keep making magazines and therefore will never, ever let us do a perfect issue, we messed up James Mcculloch’s recipe page this June. Specifically, the recipe for Clear Mandarin and Jasmine Jelly is actually just a reprint of the accompanying recipe for Mac ‘n’ Cheese. Don’t try to make jelly in the oven. I realise it is very much my job to spot these things, but I texted Elwyn, designer, three days ago and posed the “can you see what we did wrong here” challenge. He got back to me an hour ago with the following: “hahahahahhahahahaahahahahahahahahahahhhahahshshshahagsgagagsgahahshahsgagejxjdhsbsixhwvsizjwg” and so on, I am not transcribing the whole message. The point is it’s the kind of error it takes a while to notice. In fact, it would be at its very easiest to see if you were about to sit down and make yourself an innovative-looking recipe from a magazine you’ve bought with faith and dedication. So that’s lucky! Anyway, I’m very embarrassed and here is the recipe.
CLEAR MANDARIN AND JASMINE JELLY
Ingredients
550ml of fresh mandarin juice
50ml fresh lemon juice
150g of icing sugar
1 tsp jasmine tea
1.5g agar agar
2-3 leaves titanium strength gelatine (confusingly, different brands’ concepts of strength fluctuate)
Recipe
1. Bring 160ml of water almost to the boil (about 90C), add the tea and steep for 2 minutes. Strain and set aside to cool.
2. Juice fresh juices and strain through a fine strainer. Keep them at room temperature.
3. Stir the agar agar with the cool tea in a saucepan, then bring it to the boil and simmer, stirring, for 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Whisk with vigour the contents of the saucepan as you slowly add the fresh juices. Once incorporated, chill over an ice bath or in the fridge.
5. Break the set gel into chunks with a fork, then tip into a cheesecloth-lined strainer. If you cant find proper cheesecloth, use 3 layers of muslin.
6. Gather the corners of the cloth and gently squeeze, catching the clarified juice in a saucepan. As the stream slows, open the cloth and refork the chunks, rather than just squeezing harder.
7. Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for a few minutes, then add to the saucepan with the juice. Heat this pan very gently until the gelatine in
dissolved. You want to make sure it’s all dissolved without heating the juice too much, as this will alter the fresh taste. At this point, sample the mix and slowly add the sugar to taste.
8. Pour the mix into one large or multiple smaller moulds and refrigerate until set! If you want to take it further, layer jellies made of different clarified juices (lime, melon, grape etc), although fruits high in acid will be harder to set.
This is not an image of clear mandarin and jasmine jelly
