In this recipe, we make a mint-flavored jelly using wild water mint (mentha aquatica) and woodear mushrooms (auricularia auricula-judae) for gelatinization.
Water mint is just one of the many kinds of wild mints. As its name suggests can be found close to water. It has purple flowers, which have a ball-like shape.
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Wood ears are amazing mushrooms. They are commonly used in Chinese cuisine in stir-fry dishes or salads. However, they also grow in Europe for most of the year when its not too warm. As the name suggests they grow on (mostly elder) wood and have an ear-like shape.
The best time to harvest wood ears is during the colder and wet months because during warmer weather they are quite often dry or infested with insects. The first amazing property of wood ears is that they can survive frost. If you happen to find a larger among of wood ears we suggest to dry them. The dried wood ear can be rehydrated and used in cooking or powdered. The second amazing property of wood ears is that you can use them powdered as a gluten free sauce thickener because they contain pectin. Wood ears powder is tasteless, and therefore suitable to thicken both savory sauces and sweet jams or jellies.
Woodear thickened mint jelly
Equipment
- 1 saucepan
- 1 Strainer
- 1 cutting board
- 1 Knife
- 1 spoon
Ingredients
- 200 ml chopped mint this is equivalent to â…˜ cup or 5 big mint branches.
- 300 ml water and an additional 50 ml if the mixture is too thick
- 24 grams sugar
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 5 tbsp wood-ear powder might be more or less since the pectin content of woodears can differ
Instructions
- Chop mint leaves and stems.
- Put mint and water into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Turn down the heat and leave mixture for 10 minutes.
- Strain the liquid back to the saucepan.
- Add sugar and lemon juice and bring to a boil again.
- Lower the heat and add wood-ear powder and stir the mixture well for 5 minutes. If the mixture is too thick, add an additional 50 ml of water.
