Starfruit Trek

I've shown you all the pictures of our incredibly prolific starfruit bushes on the terrace. I'd been threatening to make starfruit-chili jam for some time, and when we decided to do Canadian Thanksgiving (a post on that after American Thanksgiving!) it seemed like the perfect plan to follow through and produce something with our produce.


We looked at this recipe and everyone pitched in - before long we had a pot of jam boiling down on the stove.

Click though for some pictures and information on how we avoided actually canning... but sadly few Star Trek references.

RJ Flamingo over at flamingomusings.com came up with the original ratios we used for this jam.

The ingredients were crazy simple:

2 cups of finely chopped carambola, seeds removed (plus a few whole slices, for fun)

1 Tbs. lemon juice

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 Tbs. honey

1 ripe (red) habanero pepper (seeds & pith removed and chopped super-fine)

Because we don't have the apparatus to actually can the jam, do the final boiling-in-can step, and preserve it, we had to make sure that the jam was thick enough by essentially boiling it down far past what the recipe called for.

The jam ended up being a great consistency (although it had to warm up to room temp after being in the fridge due to our adding more honey and not enough starfruit). It was sweet and had a great kick in the back from the chilis (although I would gladly have added 5 times the peppers, we had a few heat-sensitive people in the room).

We served it with sliced baguettes and soft cheese. Although we had to eat it all in a couple days, it was completely worth it... there's nothing like fresh bread and jam!

I dare those starfruits to keep growing. You saw what happened to your brethren.... I'm thinking something pork-based for the next crop. You've been warned, fruit tree.

And because this was the first result when I googled 'Star Trek Jam'...