Does anyone have a QUICK method for removing stones from
damsons, other small plums and small cherries? When making
large volumes of jam from small fruit with largish stones, I seem to spend a long time removing them. I've tried: before cooking, during cooking before and after adding sugar, fishing out with slotted spoon, squeezing through hand juice/pulp extractor, colanders, sieves... any tips would be gratefully received.
I know the feeling! While standing fishing out stones with a slotted spoon I was pondering on a cherry stoner from Lakeland:
I'm not sure if it would be any good, but anything's better than sitting cutting each damson in half which I have done in the past!
some pound shops sell cherry / olive stoners from time to time. that may be a cheap way to try it out.
Hi Jen.........Garlic presses often have them on...just bought one for £2.99 from Wilkinsons for a load of cherries.
can you not bash them with a rolling pin before they are cooked ? That's how i stone olives.
I thought that you just leave them in and they float to the top while boiling so you can skim them off...
Admittedly you do risk missing some!
moonbells
Thanks for replies. I have thought about a cherry stoner before, but it looks horribly long winded. I had 50+ jars to do, and hoped there might be something a bit more on the automatic side.
Doubt if a damson stone would go thru a cherry de-stoner, and when I did these cherries, enlisted my young neighbours, one held the machine and pressed, and his wife chose, placed ,then removed the fruit.Automation of a sort. You could make one out of plumbers plastic pipe...the smaller size with a handle at one end and a rod at the other, sliding in a larger sized pipe. There needs to be an proper sized hole in the table or whatever for the stone to go thru.Better still two or three holes with someone placing the fruit and removing the fruit while you go onto the next and then alternating.Bucket under to catch the stones.Even better, several different sized holes for different sized fruit on different boards, and whilst one person is de stoning the fruit on one board the other can be placing the fruit over the holes in the other board, then swap boards.
I find it easiest to remove the stone while eating the jam sandwich...
....Rick Stein the chef on the TV the other day was cutting them open with a small knife. He mentioned how dull the job was but didn't hear him mention a machine.
Thanks all for the suggestions. Looks like I might be putting my engineering hat on for this one.
Asimov probably invented a laser machine to do it, Jenny...the same way that hedges will be done in the future:-)