Shelves of modern grocery stores delight us with an amazing abundance. You can buy anything you want: jams, jams, marmalades and preserves. But the homework of skilled housewives still confidently hold the palm. Every family will definitely find its favorite recipe.
Today we’ll talk about a rather unusual combination of familiar foods: nuts and apricot. From this "sweet couple" you can cook an amazing dish. It will surely appeal to your household. In addition, apricot jam with walnut is not just an unusual dessert or a treat for tea. This is a natural vitamin "bomb." Apricot jam with walnut perfectly strengthens the immune system, normalizes blood pressure, enriches the body with potassium, supports the heart and protects against vitamin deficiency.
How to choose an apricot
To make apricot jam with walnut tasty, the fruits must be chosen correctly.
First of all, the sunny fruits should be smooth and beautiful in appearance. Try to choose apricots that do not have any flakes or other flaws on their skins. Of course, damage can be cut. But then you will not get smooth and beautiful slices. Apricot will break apart and can turn into porridge.
It is worth choosing such varieties in which the bone separates easily. You can check it right in the market. Most often, sellers are happy to demonstrate the benefits of their product. In extreme cases, for one apricot you can offer a nominal fee.
Pay attention to the ripeness of the fruit. Sunny fruit should be ripe enough, but not soft. Also, sinewy varieties are not suitable.
Classic recipe
You can find a lot of recipes for apricot jam with walnuts. We will start with the classic version.
For each kilogram of fruit, take approximately 700 grams of granulated sugar. You will also need about 350 grams of peeled walnut kernels. If you want jam not to be ashamed to put on the festive table, give preference to beautiful nut halves. If the aesthetic component is not too important, any can be taken. The taste of this will not suffer at all.
Cooking process:
- To get started, take apricots and wash them thoroughly under running water.
- Lay the fruits on a kitchen towel and let dry.
- Peel the fruit from all damage, break into halves and take out the stone.
- Now apricots need to be laid in a basin, a cauldron or a pan with a thick bottom and completely covered with sweet sand.
- Leave the container for 6–8 hours. During this time, even the “driest” varieties will definitely let the juice go.
Now we start cooking:
- Put the bowl on the fire and let the jam boil.
- Remove the froth and continue to boil for about 10 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and leave the container for 3-4 hours. During this time, the contents of the basin should cool, and the fruit should be soaked in syrup. Repeat the process two more times.
- While the jam is cooling, prepare the nuts. They must be cleaned of films and partitions. It is best to pour boiling water over the kernels for 15–20 minutes, and then peel the skin from them. But if the nuts are very old, nothing may come of it.
- Place the bowl on the fire for the last, fourth time and bring the mixture to a boil. Pour the nut kernels and boil the jam for another 20–25 minutes.
- Arrange the mixture in sterilized jars and seal.
Note! Mix the jam very carefully. Otherwise, at the exit, you run the risk of getting apricot porridge. You can start tasting the product no earlier than after 4-5 weeks. During this time, the nuts are completely saturated with syrup and will become surprisingly tasty.
If you do everything right, you will definitely get amazing apricot jam with walnuts. The recipe, however, may be a little different. You can add a little more or less sugar and nuts. Then the taste will be different.
Stuffing Apricots
And here is another option - apricot jam with walnut inside. This original recipe may surprise your guests.
To make such apricot jam with walnuts, you will need fairly dense fruits. You can even take a little immature. The main condition is that the bone should be separated easily. Otherwise, nothing will come of it.
You will need these ingredients:
- “Right” apricots - 1 kg;
- granulated sugar - 3–3.5 cups;
- walnuts (peeled) - 1 cup;
- water - 1-1.5 cups.
Cooking process:
- Apricots are washed and thoroughly dried.
- Now you need to remove the bones. You can use one of two methods for this. First: with a skewer or a cocktail tube, pierce the apricot from the bottom. The seed comes out quite easily in the place where the apricot was attached to the twig. Second: with a small sharp knife, cut the fruit along the groove (not to the end) and pick out a bone into the formed slot. The most important thing is that the apricot does not fall into halves.
- We insert a nut into the hole formed. If the apricot is large, 2-3 slices can fit, if small, just one is enough.
- Pour water into a pan with a thick bottom and add the right amount of sugar. We put the container on fire and bring to a boil.
- Pour the stuffed apricots with boiling syrup and set aside until it cools completely.
- Now with the help of a slotted spoon we take out the sunny fruits, and again bring the syrup to a boil. Repeat the process again.
- The third time we send a pan to the fire along with syrup and apricots. Bring to a boil over low heat. Try not to mix the jam. So that the contents do not burn, it is enough to regularly move the pan from side to side.
- After 30 minutes, put the apricots in jars and pour sweet viscous syrup. Roll up.
Baked Apricot Jam
This recipe for apricot jam with walnuts is even more original. The fact is that it does not need to be cooked at all. All preparatory work is no different from the previous recipe. And then the fun begins:
- Take a deep baking dish, preferably with a non-stick coating.
- Arrange the apricots stuffed with nuts in dense rows in one layer.
- Take granulated sugar and generously sprinkle all the fruits with it. For 1 kg of apricots, you will need approximately 700-800 grams of sand.
- Place a baking sheet (mold) in a cold oven and set the temperature to about 180 degrees.
- Bake the jam for 1.5 hours. Time depends on the size of the fruit. If the apricots are small, an hour may be enough. Sugar should completely dissolve and boil quietly. Fruits will become soft, but will not fall apart.
When everything is ready, carefully arrange the apricots in sterilized jars and pour in the syrup. Be sure to wrap up the rolled cans. This will extend the heat treatment time and the nucleoli are better saturated with syrup.
Apricot jam with different nuts
Those who like to experiment do not have to make apricot jam with walnuts. Cashews, almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, nucleoli of the apricots themselves are quite suitable for this dish. Most importantly, the nuts just need to be peeled off the dark skin. Otherwise, your aromatic jam will be bitter.
If you want an even more original flavor, you can roast the nuts a little in a dry pan. And you can use a mixture of nuts, and then the taste of the treat will become even more unique.
Variations on a Theme
Each hostess has her favorite recipe for apricot jam with walnuts. Some add zest of oranges or lemon juice to the mixture. Others use their favorite spices, such as cardamom or cloves. And in our most original, in our opinion, recipe for apricot jam with walnut, mint was added. Everything is prepared very simply. Choose any cooking method you like, and during the last boil a handful of mint leaves are added to the basin. Mistresses promise simply magical taste and aroma. Give it a try! What if you like it?