The fruit called red currant belongs, like all currants (including gooseberry), to the Grossulariaceae; they are typical plants of the northern territories and mountain environments, used since ancient times for food and therapeutic purposes: they are a reserve of vitamin C, excellent for combating the typical ailments of cold environments.
They also contain many flavonoids and anthocyanins, always used as painkillers, to counteract the discomforts due to menopause, to minimize allergies and intolerances, and for a thousand other traditional uses.
It is believed that red currant originates from north-western Europe, namely Brittany, Belgium, Denmark.
What are the beneficial health properties related to the consumption of red currants?
The currant is helpful in case of intestinal constipation: thanks to the excellent quality dietary fiber, the intestine is well treated, its health improved.
The food fiber also helps fight cholesterol and improve the state of the arteries.
As a good source of vitamin K, we can say that red currant is an excellent ally of bones : vitamin K in fact reduces the loss of calcium through the urine and lowers the unnatural tendency of the blood to acidify.
The vitamin C present in the redcurrant is not only useful against the discomforts typical of cold and winter, but also to maintain a good collagen, and therefore to improve the health of skin and hair.
Those suffering from anemia discovers in the redcurrant an excellent tool for the formation of red blood cells, thanks to the reserve of iron and copper contained in the fruit. Finally, like all currants, it has a strong antioxidant power, important for the prevention of tumors and for the fight against free radicals.
Red currant jam
Red currant is a fruit available in some areas and in some months, not anywhere and not all year.
For this reason one of the worlds to have it always available in the kitchen is to transform it into jam, or better, into jam, since the term marmellata is to refer to citrus fruit jams.
Furthermore, the sugars we are going to use will make the fruit sweeter than natural, where the acidognolo taste tends to prevail.
Preparation of red currant jam
And here we are in the kitchen preparing the recipe. It is a fairly easy to make jam: the berries, detached from the stalk, must be washed and well dried.
Once cooked on a low flame until you see them release the juice (about 10 minutes), extract the material to pass it through a sieve, a filter or a strainer that will allow us to eliminate the seeds.
To the good puree that remains, it will be time to add sugar in a variable proportion between 1: 0.6 and 1: 1; the sugar will dissolve evenly over a period of 6 to 8 minutes.
We will wait until everything starts to boil, turning slowly but regularly, and let it boil for 4-5 minutes more.
Now all that remains is to fill some previously sterilized jars with boiling water, hot steam, grapefruit essential oil, passing them in the oven or in any other classical way, as long as they are well dried, and we will fill them with our warm red currant jam, for then hermetically close and store the jars in a dark place upside down, so that the vacuum forms.
To obtain a more gelled jam, we can add the pulp and peel of an apple to our preparation; it is well known that apples contain pectin, a polysaccharide responsible for gelation.
How to consume red currant jam
White bread is the best friend of red currant jam, no doubt, especially when combined with a thin layer of butter .
However we can discover another 1000 ways of consuming this delicacy: we can put the jam in a glass mixed with walnuts and peanuts, and then keep it all at low temperatures to have a stuffing-like pudding effect ; or the blackcurrant jam goes very well with cream or coconut milk, ideal on a toast .
Are you making muffins ? Guess what you can put in as a filling? And another of the most popular combinations on this theme is red currant jam with chocolate biscuits . Finally, we cannot exempt ourselves from suggesting a delicious crepes with the taste of red currants.
