PEPPERY MANGO JAM

I was this little since when I had been watching the mother preparing jam and jelly at home ...... mainly of guava and mango. I remember my favourite pastime was to apply a thick layer of those homemade jam atop cream cracker biscuit .... sit with my favourite author and take small pleasure bites, bhai was not a foodie but had his jam & biscuit! Now when I ask the mother the recipe.... she says she forgot where she learnt from, how she made. Once I got married she stopped cooking variety because my brother never took interest in varied dishes .... he sticks to his love for biryani and meat curries with pulao and South Asian Breads and Hilsa off course. For the son, our mother learnt to prepare biryani at home with her secret spice mix, a plate of Biryani with a single piece of meat, potato and egg costs around two hundred rupees in Kolkata. I call it 'secret' spice because she never shares the actual recipe with the daughter or anyone.... hahaha .... this is her habit since ages. As long as my brother and son are happy with her recipe of biryani, I am at peace too. Ain't siblings special? They are, they are always ready to go that extra mile for you. It is nightmarish to think my son will be alone when we are not there in this world, what if our 'Olive Oyl' is not much of friendly with her 'him'? I do not know why my senior's sister and my brother are stuck with their decision of not having kids, multiplying my worries.

Did I say I love kids?..... Yes I mean it.... these angels on earth do not know how to pretend or to dramatise an event or situation. They just bring in fresh air wherever they go. How much I love kids... I perhaps do not have the patience of handling them.... these bunch of fresh flowers are more fond of my man. He says  we must treat the kids as another human being S and not as our play doll.... we should stop cuddling and kissing them every now and then.... it irritates them .... we need to give them our time, attention and be playful. He was this good at handling kids even when he was in his twenties. In the Indian or the Subcontinental context, we really do not think of the kids much ..... how many movies are done just for the kids or books written for them? Kids should not grow up reading Harry Potter alone. This old lady still gets goosebumps when she thinks of the Adventures of the Sailor Sindbad, Shamaresh Basu's 'Gogol' series or Sunil Gangopadhay's 'Kakababu O Shantu.' I am thankful to our father in many ways .... Did I wish to go for a kid friendly recipe today? Yes, I indeed felt that..... why I do not know. Do not try to find logic in my actions, mad people do not think logically, they are just instant with their actions .... good .... bad or whatever.

Since our mother forgot how she made her jams and jellies which she stopped making some 20 years back, I had to scrawl through Google for some ideas. I loved the spiced mango jam recipe from the blog Scratching Canvas and wished to go ahead with my own version of a mango jam with a dash of coarsely ground black pepper powder done fresh. It was done about two months back in bulk, our son  loves it with his bread, your kids will love it too. The recipe is really simple with few ingredients, homemade from scratch. Come let us do it together or you may engage your kids to do it.

Recipe Idea - Scratching Canvas Blog!

INGREDIENTS :

Ripe Mango - 4-6
Sugar : 1 small sized tea cup
Coarsely Ground Black Pepper : 1 & 1/2tsp
Lemon Juice : 1/2 small size tea cup
Water : 1/3 Coffee Mug

METHOD :

Wash and peel the mangoes. Chop the pulp roughly into smaller pieces and discard the seeds.

Take the mango pieces in a heavy bottomed vessel. Add the water and put on the gas stove.

Let it boil at medium to low heat for 5 minutes. Add the sugar and let simmer for 3-4 minutes. Stir every 1-2 minutes.

Add the lemon juice and simmer furthermore for few minutes until the jam gets little stickier.

Add the freshly ground coarse black pepper powder and give a quick stir. Switch off the gas stove.

Once cool, transfer to a clean, sterilised  glass container. It stays for months if refrigerated.