Canning and Preserving For Dummies (34 page)

Canned Ground Beef

This basic canning recipe makes the most of a common food: burger! Use this tasty food in any recipe that calls for ground beef. You may find the texture to be a little finer, but the flavor is outstanding. Remember, you may have to use a spoon to remove the ground meat from jars. No worries — once it’s heated, it’ll again be the crumbly texture you know.

Preparation time:
1 hour

Processing time
: Pints, 1 hour 15 minutes; quarts, 1 hour 30 minutes

Pressure level
: 10 pounds

Yield
: 8 pints or 4 quarts

8 pounds lean ground beef

Water, tomato juice, or beef broth

Canning salt (optional)

1
Lightly brown ground beef in a dry skillet. While the beef is browning, bring your water, tomato juice, or beef broth to a boil.

2
While the meat is cooking and your liquid is coming to a boil, prepare the canning jars and two-piece caps (lids and screw bands) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Keep the jars and lids hot. (For detailed instructions on preparing your jars, see Chapter 4.)

3
Ladle the ground beef into each prepared jar and cover with boiling liquid, leaving 1-inch headspace. Add 1/4 teaspoon salt to each pint jar or 1/2 teaspoon salt to each quart jar, if desired. Release any air bubbles with a nonreactive utensil (refer to Chapter 3). Wipe the jar rims; seal the jars with the two-piece caps, hand-tightening the bands.

4
Process your filled jars in the pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure for 1 hour 15 minutes (pints) and 1 hour 30 minutes (quarts). When the processing time is done, allow the pressure to return to 0, wait an additional 10 minutes, and then carefully open the canner lid. (Head to Chapter 9 for detailed processing instructions for pressure canning.)

5
Remove the hot jars with a jar lifter. Place the jars on a clean kitchen towel in a draft-free area. After the jars cool completely, test the seals (refer to Chapter 4). (If you find jars that haven’t sealed, immediately refrigerate them and use them within one week.) Boil the contents of each jar for 15 minutes before tasting or eating.

Vary It!:
Add a single bouillon cube per quart in place of the salt for a slightly different flavor.

Per 4-ounce serving:
Calories 261 (From fat 123); Fat 14g (Saturated 10g); Cholesterol 101mg; Sodium 99mg; Carbohydrates 0g (Dietary fiber 0g); Protein 32g.

Poultry

Poultry is chicken, turkey, and other birds. To can fresh chickens (those that haven’t been frozen), you use the cold pack method. To can chickens that have been previously frozen, you use the hot pack method.

Canning is the perfect way to use roosters and older hens. (An older hen, known as a
stewing hen,
is one that is older than 1 1/2 years.) These traditionally tougher birds are made tender and succulent through the canning process. The younger chickens tend to become too soft and are better if frozen.

Canning fresh chicken: Cold packing

Cold packing is recommended for poultry that has never been frozen and makes a fast and efficient way to preserve poultry for your pantry.

Preparing the chicken:
If you have whole chickens, remove the breasts to freeze separately and can the remaining parts of the bird. Separate the leg pieces at the joint, so you have a thigh and drumstick for each leg. Place the pieces of cold chicken in a large bowl, only preparing enough chickens for a full canner load.

Make sure that the drumstick bone is not too tall for a lid to sit flush on the rim of the jar. If so, chop off the excess bone with a cleaver, or refit.

Filling the jars:
When canning chicken, fit one chicken per quart. Cold-pack chicken pieces into each quart jar. Place the pieces close together, but not jammed in, fitting them like a puzzle, working around the jar until no more room is left (see Figure 11-1). Add one bouillon cube into each jar before hand-tightening the lid. Don’t add any additional liquid to cold pack chicken because the canning process yields a surprising amount of liquid.

The natural gelatin in the chicken bones gives the cooled liquid a jellylike consistency. Once heated, this jelly will liquefy and be full of flavor.

Canning prefrozen chicken: Hot packing

You may also can prefrozen chickens. Say you have a freezer full of chicken and your freezer suddenly breaks down. Now you need to process a large amount of poultry, and fast. You can successfully can prefrozen poultry as long as it’s not freezer damaged and you thaw it slowly in a refrigerator. (This is not a technique to use on old, forgotten chicken that you suddenly found at the bottom of your freezer.) A good rule of thumb: Can chicken that’s been frozen for 4 months or less.

Preparing the chicken:
To can prefrozen chicken, you use the hot pack method: Cut up the chicken and separate the pieces at all the joints so that you end up with thighs and drumsticks. Save the more desirable breast pieces for a separate meal. Remove the skin if you like (doing so reduces the amount of fat in the jar). Then cook the pieces about two-thirds of the way through. The meat finishes cooking in the canner.

Filling the jars:
Fill hot jars with hot chicken pieces, fitting them together like puzzle pieces, until the jar is full, leaving 1-inch headspace.

Never Fail Canned Chicken

Canned fresh chicken is probably the most superbly flavored way to cook poultry. It’s canned in the simplest manner as well: cold packed into hot jars. This chicken is perfect for any recipe calling for cooked or shredded chicken. Once canned, the chicken falls off the bone, making cleaning it a snap.

Preparation time:
30 minutes

Processing time
: 1 hour 15 minutes

Pressure level:
10 pounds

Yield
: 7 quarts (each containing one 3-pound chicken)

Seven 3-pound chickens

Canning salt or bouillon cubes (optional)

1
Cut each chicken into parts, separating legs into thigh and drumstick pieces. Place the pieces in a large bowl, keeping them cold as you continue to cut. Remove the skin, if desired. Remove the breasts and use or freeze them separately.

2
Prepare the canning jars and two-piece caps (lids and screw bands) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Keep the jars and lids hot. (For detailed instructions on preparing your jars, see Chapter 4.)

3
Fill the prepared jars with the chicken pieces until full, leaving 1-inch headspace. Add 1 bouillon cube or 1/2 teaspoon canning salt to each quart jar, if desired. Release any air bubbles with a nonreactive utensil (refer to Chapter 3). Wipe the jar rims; seal the jars with the two-piece caps, hand-tightening the bands. (
Note:
Due to the each chicken being a little different, you may find that you fit different numbers of pieces into each jar.)

4
Process your filled jars in a pressure canner at 10 pounds pressure for 1 hour 15 minutes. When the processing time is done, allow the pressure to return to 0, wait an additional 10 minutes, and then carefully open the canner lid. (Head to Chapter 9 for detailed processing instructions for pressure canning.)

5
Remove the hot jars with a jar lifter. Place the jars on a clean kitchen towel in a draft-free area. After the jars cool completely, test the seals. (If you find jars that haven’t sealed, immediately refrigerate them and use them within one week.) Boil the contents of each jar for 5 minutes before tasting or eating.

Vary It!
If you are canning chicken that has been previously frozen and then thawed, cook it two-thirds of the way through before filling the canning jars.

Per 4-ounce serving:
Calories 214 (From fat 88); Fat 10g (Saturated 3g); Cholesterol 97mg; Sodium 85mg; Carbohydrates 0g (Dietary fiber 0g); Protein 29g.

Fish and Seafood

Many people are surprised to know that both fish and seafood can be canned successfully. Doing so is great if you’re a sportsman or sportswoman and often end up with bags of frozen fillets you don’t know what to do with. You can add seasoned broth or tomato juice to the jars, and the resulting food is delicious as well as a unique addition to your pantry.

Both fish and seafood fall into the delicate category. Both should be cold packed, and you must follow the recipe closely and handle the food with care throughout the process. But because they make wonderful additions to savory pies and soups or stews, they’re worth the extra effort and care it takes to make a healthy and delicious product.