Kamias Jam

Kamias to us Filipinos and it got a lot of other names in other countries : English -cucumber tree, Thailand - taling pling , Malaysia - belimbing asam , Indonesia - balimbing . . etc,etc. Semi- wild to other neighboring tropical countries, in here kamias is a backyard plant.

I swear it is so backyard it flourishes in our own backyard. I would see it everyday_ hanging on its tree  in massive greens like ornaments, followed by a day of fall when I would find the fruits dispersed on the ground_ wasted. tsk.tsk. Then I would feel really sad for them. Died and rotten without a cause, if being an ornament in the backyard ( not even in the garden) is not consider as so. . I rarely use kamias in my kitchen. If I did, it would be one only to 4 pieces the most to savor dishes which do not even  frequent our table. But there are hundreds of it in the backyard with wasted fate.

So one morning I could no longer contain myself from feeling bad about the abundant kamias and started to gather tens of it from the tree toward  my kitchen. I sit on a colander full of kamias and hit the Google for a recipe of  kamias jam. I remember enjoying the jam from a neighbor's kitchen in the province so definitely I knew at once how it should taste and therefore already had the idea how to make it. To make sure thu' I googled and found similar recipes allover the net.

There are only four major ingredients - 1).kamias 2) water 3) sugar and the fourth ingredient is apog??? google.google. It's lime in English. Came not safely edible to me and sounded like a construction/builder supply to me rather than a condiment. Then I remembered my primary home economics where I cooked another  preserved  juicy fruit ( the name escapes me now cos I'm sure it's not common and quite exotic) and we used apog too!!! But I was in the rural town then when apog could be bought from sari-sari store next to our house. Husband came to the rescue and found sachets of it in the local wet market. Not available in our leading groceries.

The procedure said : !) wash and 2) cut both ends of each fruit. ( I wasn't able to cut them. see. haha. I forgot! ). then 3). prick each all over using toothpick around five to six times ( again, I did not! haha. I forgot it too! )



4) soak them in water with apog (lime) overnight. just estimate water and lime according to the quantity of kamias. as long as they are all covered with the liquid.



This is how they looked the following day. Notice the failed ones? still green? I thought it was because I failed to do steps 2 & 3, so that not all of them absorbed the effect of the limed water soak. At this point of failure it hit me those missed two steps so I tried to compensate a late cutting of both ends.



 5) thoroughly wash them 3 times in clean water.  



6) squeeze them and you could use a fork here as a help. 7) put all ingredients, except apog , in a pan aiming to make a syrup with the kamias already included. Measurement of sugar is the same as water. Stop cooking when it's already thick and jam-y.



Here's the end product ! 7) Put yours too in a bottle. I actually made it four months ago and took this photo an hour ago. haha! Needless to say, I tried to save the fresh kamias from getting rotten . . only to stuck them inside this bottle ! haha. No one in the house has the interest to even try it. I did enjoy it for like the first 3 spoonfull, then got back to my all-time favorite strawberry jam. haha. Now which is the lesser evil??