Several years ago I made some Basil Jelly, unfortunately due to numerous relocations I cannot find my Herbal Treasurs book, hence no recipe. I believed it used apple juice.

-- Norah A Johnson (Rockinhorse@knoxy.net), September 02, 2001

Answers

Norah, This recipe can be made with many herbs: basil (purple basil makes a really pretty jelly), mint, lemon verbena, or lemon balm.

1 1/2 cups firmly packed basil. Crush leaves and stems; add 2 1/4 cups of water, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat, cover and let stand for 10 minutes. Strain to remove all bits of basil.

Pour 1 3/4 Cups basil juice into a large pot. Stir in 3 1/2 Cups sugar and 2 tbsp. lemon juice or rice wine vinegar. Bring to a full boil, stirring constantly. When it cannot be stirred down, add 1 package liquid pectin and bring again to a full boil. Boil hard for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Skim off foam. Pour into hot jelly jars, leaving 1/4" head space. Process 5 minutes in a hot water bath. Makes 4 half pints.

-- Katherine (KyKatherine@Yahoo.com), September 02, 2001.

Some very good and unusual recipes here: http://recipes.alastra.com/preserving/ :) tang

-- tang (tang@mtaonline.net), September 02, 2001.

Excuse my ignorance, but what do you use basil jelly for? We have a bumper crop this year and I'm looking for things to do with it.

-- David P. Leach (owlhouse2@cs.com), September 05, 2001.

Serve it with meat - like mint jelly with lamb. It can also be used in a marinade or baste with it while meat is cooking.

-- Bonnie (stichart@plix.com), September 07, 2001.