Cherry Compote

Compote is fresh fruit preserved in sugar water in jars for the winter. Usually, especially in small villages like mine, this is homemade. Yesterday we made cherry compote. The cherries didn't come from the garden, but instead from the village of Priceltsi, which is known for their cherries during this time of the year. They are super duper tasty.

The first thing you need to do is wash and de-stem the cherries, as well as clean the jars to make sure they dont have latent food particles or bacteria that will ruin the fruit while it sits. Then you fill the jars with the fresh cherries and cover each one in 5 spoon fulls of sugar. To me this is too much sugar because cherries are naturally sweet, but this is not something I know how to do so I'm not arguing with it. Next, you fill them up with water, just to about a cm under the top.

Some have screw on lids and some have lids that take a special tool to fasten on, and are quiet difficult to get off. Once the lids are on you have to submerge them in boiling water for I am not entirely sure how long to seal them and make it vacuum tight. We did this with a giant black kettle in the back. It was set up on bricks and we started a fire and then placed the kettle on top and filled it with hose water. After the jars were in there for enough time we took them out and placed them upside-down on the ground to make sure the seal was good.

Now we have to wait for them to age and stuff. Good thing there are already strawberry ones in the cellar.

one batch from after the boiling stage setting

large kettle for boiling and sealing