Grape jam with dark chocolate

Last year I set about „landscaping” my tiny garden. Apart from trying to reform my lawn (a complete failure: after stripping off the entire layer of grass and carrying away 20 bags of old grass and soil with roots, I feel the grass is now worse than before) and planting the usual things — thuja, lavender, roses and a few little conifers — I decided to try putting part of it to productive use. I planted lovely rosemary bushes, thyme, blueberries and basil.

To this day, really only the thyme has survived in a condition that lets me use it for preparing, or rather seasoning, dishes. But what has exceeded my expectations (touch wood) is the grape plant, or grapevine, as I think it’s properly called.

Around spring 2013, I planted four of them. Two roughly half-metre sticks of white grapes and two of dark grapes. I mean white and dark fruit. They started growing unexpectedly fast, but this year their growth practically exploded. Not only did they cover the entire fence on every side and start pushing their way into the neighbour’s garden, but, to my utter surprise, around the end of April I noticed they were bearing fruit.

Unfortunately, only one plant of each kind. And although the white one did bear fruit, the grapes were rather misshapen this year. The dark one, though. First class. Just look:

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These photos are from the end of the summer holidays and after the harvest. I picked the grapes very late, only the day before yesterday.

September and October were so beautiful (up until yesterday, that is) that I thought my grapes would develop the flavour reserved for outstanding varieties grown on the slopes around Bordeaux. And that’s exactly what happened. Once picked, they tasted like a delicate, long-aged, semi-sweet port.

I spent a long time wondering whether to make wine from them, but once I learnt about the production process, I decided that was rocket science for Prymitywna Kuchnia. So I went for grape jam. Though you could just as well call it a smooth fruit preserve. A rather unusual one, enriched with dark chocolate, with a flavour that’s extravagant rather than everyday.

I imagine this combination won’t appeal to every palate, though I find it pretty good. The flavour of dark home-grown grapes combined with delicate yet sharp (and quite strong) port, immersed in distinctive Toblerone chocolate, makes an impression. I recommend it.

At a glance: 

Preparation time: 2 days (probably about 3 hours of hands-on work altogether)

Serves: makes 3 tiny jars (as in the photos)

How many calories: hehehe, yes, there are some, but it’s only 3 jars

Ingredients for dark grape jam:

• about 1.5 kg of dark grapes (as you know, mine were home-grown; I don’t know the variety, but they weren’t very dark, tasted like semi-sweet port and were only picked in mid-October, so the fruit was very ripe)
• 2/3 of a glass of semi-sweet port (a cheap one for 24 PLN from Fresh Market, also known as Żabka)
• 50 grams of dark Toblerone chocolate
• half a glass of sugar
• 2 tablespoons of lime juice

Recipe for a smooth preserve, or perhaps jam, from home-grown dark grapes:

The recipe is ridiculously simple, but rather time-consuming. Not only does it cook over two days (with a break, of course), but the worst part is straining the fruit to remove the skins and seeds. But let’s start at the beginning.

I picked the grapes off their stems and washed them very thoroughly. I put them in a large pot and poured the port over them. I cooked them for about 1.5 hours. I let them cool and started removing the seeds and skins. This takes quite a while if you don’t want to waste too much of the fruit. It took me about 45 minutes.

I took two bowls and a fine sieve. I filled the sieve with the cooked fruit and port, then pressed it through with a spoon over a bowl, so that the pulp went into the bowl and the skins and seeds stayed in the sieve. As you can imagine, it’s easy at first, but you don’t get much pulp. So you have to keep going until what’s left in the sieve is almost dry. It takes strength, patience and time. But it’s worth it. The final result is certainly worth the effort. You can see the whole process documented in the photos below.

Once I’d managed to get more or less the result I wanted (I had hoped a little more pulp and wine would make it back into the pot after straining — it should be fairly runny), I added half a glass of sugar and 2 tablespoons of lime juice to the pulp in the pot, mixed thoroughly and started cooking over a low „flame” (very low: on my induction hob that’s „2” on a scale of 1 – 10).

After about an hour, I added the dark Toblerone chocolate, chopped into small pieces. I stirred thoroughly and cooked until the chocolate had melted completely, then for another 10 minutes. After that, I covered the pot with a lid and set it aside in a cool place for 10 hours.

After 10 hours, I cooked it over a very low heat for about another 1 hour, until I had a fairly thick jam. At this point, you can transfer it to jars and pasteurise it, or simply let it cool and eat it (on pancakes, for example, or just on a buttered slice of bread). Enjoy!