Chokecherries!
Faye Stukey
and syrup from chokecherries... but I've also heard that the pits are
poisonous. My first question is this: if I cook the whole chokecherry...
like put a bunch in a pot with "some" water and cook them down... put them
through a food mill... will this be safe? Or will the food mill crush the
pits and get the bad stuff in my juice? My second question is this: if
they can be cooked down this way... what is the best way to make jelly or
syrup out of them? Or... does anybody have any other ideas for using
chokecherries?
Thanks!
Faye
David Howard
I'm from Washington state and I have never heard of chokecherries.
What part of the country to you have to be in to get them ?
"Faye Stukey" <stu...@aboutmontana.net> wrote in message
news:tp388bp...@corp.supernews.com...
pheasant
Greetings from ND!
To make jelly Faye; boil them about 10 minutes whole fruit, then just
put some in a cheesecloth bag and express the juice. We let them cool
and drip first, then squeeze for all we're worth to get the rest of the
juice. Use Certo's pectin and recipe for sour cherry jelly, 7c sugar 3
1/2c juice 2pk Certo, and a pat of butter to prevent foaming.
When we make syrup, (oh this is GREAT stuff) we grind the raw berries,
pits and all. The wonderful almond aroma you smell is cyanide gas
escaping. We grind the berries, let them stand 2 days to gas off, then
proceed with recipe.
Totally different recipe, and absolutely wonderful tasting syrup.
Pancakes and ice cream don't stand a chance when this is around.
Will need tartaric acid for this recipe too. Lots of work, but oh man,
nothing better in the world for midwest native fruits.
Mark
Four boxes protect our freedom: the soap box, the
ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Faye Stukey
over the country. But I'm new to chokecherries... I've lived here over five
years and just realized what they were this past week!
Faye
"David Howard" <gasl...@serv.net> wrote in message
news:99941514...@dns2.serv.net...
Faye Stukey
>
> When we make syrup, (oh this is GREAT stuff) we grind the raw berries,
> pits and all. The wonderful almond aroma you smell is cyanide gas
> escaping. We grind the berries, let them stand 2 days to gas off, then
> proceed with recipe.
Thanks so much for the response!
One quick question... what do you use to grind the pits???
It looks like I know what I'll be doing this weekend!
Faye
pheasant
We use an old Universal food grinder. Not sure of the number, but just
a small one you might have in the pantry to make ham/chicken salad with.
I'd never use my good sausage grinders though.
--
Ron Lambert
I have been eating chokecherry jelly since I was a child ('m retired
now) and have never heard this.
Since you usually cook out the juices for jellies and syrups -- the pit
should not be a problem. I have never tried jam, since there must be a
lot of work to get the "meat" off the pit. I don't eat apple cores, or
peach pits and the likes, so why eat the chokecherry pit.
Besides, chokecherry syrup on waffles --- sinning in the first order.
---
ron
Barbara Yoder
I'm just wondering what your recipe is for the syrup?
Thanks,
Barbara
pheasant <phea...@btinet.net> wrote in message
news:3B924CC7...@btinet.net...
Randy B
corner of the state (where I grew up) and there are millions of choke cherry
trees.
Ddobjohnson
writes:
>When we make syrup, (oh this is GREAT stuff) we grind the raw berries,
>pits and all. The wonderful almond aroma you smell is cyanide gas
>escaping. We grind the berries, let them stand 2 days to gas off, then
>proceed with recipe.
>Totally different recipe, and absolutely wonderful tasting syrup.
>Pancakes and ice cream don't stand a chance when this is around.
>Will need tartaric acid for this recipe too. Lots of work, but oh man,
>nothing better in the world for midwest native fruits.
Hey Mark,
That part about grinding the pits and all is interesting. I have been trying
to find out how to safely do that for pemmican the way the plains Indians used
to make it. I take it that letting them sit for a couple days after grinding
them is what makes them safe?
How about posting the entire recipe for syrup. I have already made a bunch,
but I also have a ton of just juice canned and may want to try a different
syrup.
Thanks,
Lightnin Dave (also from ND)
P.S. Someone told me that when the chokecherries are as good as they were this
year, we're in for a long hard winter.
David Howard
"Randy B" <marb...@home.com> wrote in message
news:tp8j4ak...@corp.supernews.com...
Kitty
Last year while visiting in Colorado, Dad and I made chokecherry jelly.
I cooked the whole fruit. seems to me I used water to cover. then I
mashed the fruit with a potato masher to release the juices and poured through
a jelly bag. Next time I will use cheesecloth in a colander. then I
SQUEEZED it till I couldn't get another drip out of it, or until my hands
hurt. I proceeded with the recipe from online, which used a half tsp of
almond flavoring. it was the best jelly I've ever had.
Seems to me, syrup would be jelly made with extra water. Kitty
--
Kitty in Somerset, PA
mail to:basye...@floodcity.net
http://eboard.com/sewingstuff
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Kitty
BTW, the food mill would be safe, it can't destroy the pits.
Eric
words prefaced by >> to which I will add some comments.
>>Faye Stukey wrote:
>>
>>> Chokecherries are everywhere this year! I've heard many people make jelly
>>> and syrup from chokecherries... but I've also heard that the pits are
>>> poisonous. My first question is this: if I cook the whole chokecherry...
The pits of most fruits contain cyanide compounds. If one ate enough pits ...
but that would be a LOT of choke cherry pits. I am more concerned about the
amount of tannin you would be ingesting. I have seen / tasted choke cherries
that contain extraordinary amounts of tannin; enough to make such fruit
un-usable for any purpose I know of.
>>> like put a bunch in a pot with "some" water and cook them down... put them
>>> through a food mill... will this be safe? Or will the food mill crush the
>>> pits and get the bad stuff in my juice? My second question is this: if
Food mill won't crush the pits so it is usable. However I won't use it for
jelly. A few years back I tired a food mill. I got rid of it after one use.
I did not like the results.
There are sundry way and gadgets to extract juice. Too much extraction provides
a juice which has things we don't want in the degree to which they may be
present.
>>Last year while visiting in Colorado, Dad and I made chokecherry jelly.
>> I cooked the whole fruit. seems to me I used water to cover. then I
This is the way I prefer to make jelly.
>>mashed the fruit with a potato masher to release the juices and poured through
>>a jelly bag. Next time I will use cheesecloth in a colander. then I
Jelly bag works quite well - it has the tendency to clog as it is a small
filter. Cheesecloth provides a lot of surface area for particulate to cling so
it offers a 'less work' advantage. However cheesecloth also passes more solids
so one will need an extra step of filtering the output.
>>SQUEEZED it till I couldn't get another drip out of it, or until my hands
Ah, squeezing and pressing. To press or not to press. It depends on the
product one is trying to make. The very best jelly ( of any type ) which is the
clearest, most subtle in flavour and has a set which is not hard will come only
from unpressed fruit. Freeze fruit to rupture skins. Bring to a boil and let
drain through a jelly bag. Work with what the bag will hold, do not force the
drip. One cannot do a great jelly the same way jamming is done. When the jelly
bag is no longer dripping, empty and wash the bag, refill with pulp and begin
the drip cycle anew.
If one wishes a stronger flavour, deeper colour and firmer set you will press or
squeeze the fruit at the boil stage and also in the filter stage.
Jelly is cursed by pectin. An extreme example of pectinitis is red currants.
Actually a lot of the red berries such as lingon berries contain huge amounts of
pectin. Failure to realize this produces the very common "cut-it-with-a-knife"
product. Pressing resting red currants will yield so much pectin ( one can see
the whitish cloudiness in the cooking pot ) that the jelly will as firm as old
cheddar cheese. Also, pressing yields tannins which mask the subtle flavours to
a remarkable degree. Steam extraction is not as harsh on the final product as
is pressing but it is still more harsh than the drip method.
Product yield is much lower with drip method. If one has a limited amount of
fruit for jelly coupled with a desire for nnn jars of jelly it is efficient to
squeeze out every drop. If one has lots of fruit and wants a jelly that is
clear, glistening and sugary soft - use the drip method.
wyld...@gmail.com
I harvested choke cherries for the first time last year and made yummy jelly as well as cherry syrup. You will need to crush the cherries to get the juice to make jelly similar to using grapes. The seeds are only poisonous if eaten in large quantities like apple seeds. A few won’t hurt you but eating a large amount might give you a stomach ache. After I got my juice for jelly, I pressed the cherries through a colander to remove as much of the seeds as possible and to get a nice pulp. I added a small amount of honey and made fruit leather. Yummy! I have heard that you can dry the seeds and crush them to make flour but I haven’t found any good directions for doing this. Have fun!
Lynne
