Marmellata D'uva Nera (Misticotto Abruzzese)

        This recipe of misticotto is an old Abruzzese version made strictly with black grapes.

Sangiovese grapes from California

 Shell the grapes and rinse them under running water.

Put the washed berries in a pot with a thick bottom.

Place the pot on the stove and mix with a wooden spoon. Once the boiling phase is reached, lower the heat and continue stirring from time to time to obtain a fairly homogeneous mixture. After about two hours, turn off the heat and let it cool. When the mixture is cold, it is necessary to carry it out with a hand-cranked vegetable mill that has holes of medium size.

The purée is carried out to remove the seeds and some peels that have not disintegrated.

Put the pureed mixture back into the pot and put it back on the heat.

Cook again, stirring very often until it shrinks and becomes a jam. It has to cook a lot around 1 hour or more.

To make sure that the jam is ready, try the saucer: pour a teaspoon of jam on the saucer, tilt the saucer and see how much the jam drips. If the jam runs too much then it must cook again, if it runs little it's ready, if it doesn't run at all it's overcooked.

                     

When the grape jam is ready, immediately pour it into the sterile jars, close the jars with the lid and turn them upside down. Cool the grape jam in the jars upside down in order to create the vacuum. Pasteurizing the jam is important to ensure that the jam can then be stored in the pantry for a long time. Pasteurizing the jam is very simple. Just put the jars of jam in a pot, pour cold water over them until they are completely covered, turn on the heat and cook everything for 15-20 minutes starting from the moment of boiling.

Once you have misticotto on hand, it's time to make tarallucci.