Selecting and handling fruits and vegetables

• Bruise - a defect in fruits and vegetables caused by improper handling.
• Freshness - refer to the quality of recently harvested fruits and vegetables with no sign of stainless.
• Maturity - the condition wherein fruits reach the stage of being ripe fully aged, and grown.
• Visual Inspection - inspecting fruits and vegetables physically using senses to characterize it's condition.
• Immature fruits - fruits that are not fully grown yet or unripe.
• Jelly - juice extracted from certain fruits suited for making jellies.
• Mashed fruit - soften fruits best for jam making.
• Propectin - converted to pectin when fruits rippen due to an enzymes.
• Pulp - a soft or freshly inner part of the plant tissue of fruits and vegetables.
• Consistency - the thickness or smoothness of a material or food.
• Extraction - removing or taking the juice from the fruit.
• Jam - made from mashed and cook whole fruit.
• Seeded - removal of seeds that are not included in the preparation.
• Syrup - combined sugar and water boiled until reaching the desire consistency.
• Blanching - cooking food in hot water for a short time.
• Marmalade - soft jellies containing thin and suspended pieces of citrus peeled or fruits.
• Pith - the soft whitish fibrous tissues lying under the outer  rind of citrus fruits.
• Whole fruit - fruit with peel and seed intact.
• Marmalades differ slightly from jams it contains pieces preferably thin slices of fruit suspended in a clear sparkling jelly. Unlike jelly they are cut in small pieces or mashed.
• The best known marmalade contain citrus fruits such as calamansi, oranges, lemons, lime and grape fruits.These have uneven texture with a slightly acidic acid.
• There are two ways of preparing marmalade :

  1. Juice and peel prepared separately or combined.
  2. Whole fruit together with the peel chopped finely.
• Preparing the fruits: 6 steps

  1. Wash the fruits
  2. Scrub with a soft
  3. To peel fruits
  4. Cut the fruits
  5. Squeeze the bag
  6. Test for pectin
• Fruit preserves - preparation of fruits and sugar that are cooked in heavy syrup.
• Jelly Bag - used to strain juice from softened fruits and pulp.
• Pectin - water soluble substance obtained from fruits causing jellies to set.
• Plump - to moisten in liquid until full or round.
• Pulp - flesh of fruits/ vegetables.
• Syrup - mixture of sugar and water
• Jelly is a soft, elastic, transparent food made from fruit juice boiled with sugar.
• Jam is a food made by boiling fruit pulp with sugar until thick.
• Marmalade is a clear, jelly-like mixture in which shreds or thin slices of fruits or peel are suspended.
• Preserves are whole small fruits or vegetables or pieces of large fruits or vegetables cooked in thick syrup until clear, plump and somewhat translucent.
• Fruits - Fruits for jelly making should have rich flavor. It should contain sufficient pectin and acid.
• Pectin - A water-soluble substance found in some slightly under ripe fruits that cause jellies to set. 
• Acid - It makes the jelly firm and rigid in structure and is essential for flavor and gel formation.
• Sugar - The formation of jelly, caused by pectin is agent by sugar. Like acid, it controls the rigidity, strength of the jelly while acting as preservative at the same time
• Acid - a substance that makes the structure of jelly is firm and rigid.
• Denatured Alcohol - a type of alcohol from wood that is used to determine the pectin content of fruit/ vegetable juice. It is usually available in hard water shops.
• Gel - a colloidal dispersion of a solid in a liquid which may range from the nearly liquid to the solid state, but is typically a semi-solid and a jelly-like consistency.
• Gel meter - is an instrument similar to a graduated pipette, where fruits juice is allowed to run down the Gel meter tube for one minute to test the pectin content.