Canning red cherry

To prepare the 'red cherry' for canning freshly collected fruits are cleaned and cut open by vertical incision to de-seed.

These are then kept in two per cent clear lime solution with 10 per cent common salt for about five to six hours to remove the acid content.

The fruits are then taken in a cotton cloth bag and immersed in boiling water for five minutes followed by immersing them in cold water to bring down the temperature.

The fruits are then spread on a clean cotton cloth to remove the excess water.

After this they are transferred into sugary syrup; prepared with a kg of table sugar in 500ml of water (for 1kg of fruits).

Red or orange food dye can also be added to the syrup for imparting colour to the fruits (10ml of colour for the above preparation), if needed.

Fruits are kept in this syrup for a day, during which water is forced out of the fruits into the syrup.

After a day, the fruits are taken out of the syrup and the syrup is concentrated by boiling. This removes the excess water in it.

Partially canned fruits are again transferred into this syrup and this procedure is repeated thrice.

After this, the fruits are boiled in the syrup for a few minutes and are taken out of the boiled syrup and allowed to cool.

Fresh syrup is prepared for the long time preservation of the canned fruits with one kg of table sugar in one litre of water.

The fruits are transferred into this syrup and one gm of sodium benzoate and five gm of citric acid are added as preservatives.

The canned 'karanda' or cherry fruits can be kept for many months in this syrup.