preserving and refidgerating

[9hundred]

I want to know if you must store flavoured vinegars and oil and preserved bottles in the fridge?

I put some apricots in a heavy sugar syrup with a little vingar to preserve them. I put it in the fridge because it looked kind of foamy ontop.

How about things like sweet chilli sauce and ketsup manis. Do they need to be put in the fridge?

And how do you preserve something like fruit?

[Georgia]

First of all to preserve fruit you can:
1. Buy a book on preserving or you can find a lot of recipes on the bottles of Certo or other preservants.

The best thing I can tell you is start with clean sterilized jars. Wide mouth jars are easier on the hands and putting the fruit in and out. Make up some simple syrup. Peaches for example can be put in sliced or halved. I usually do both. On the half peaches I usually put them in the jar cut side down and in a circular pattern so that they are on all sides of the jar (the jar will hold more this way also besides looking pretty.). Pour in some simple syrup to within a half inch of top of jar. Be sure to wipe off top of jar to make sure that the top does not have any liquid on it. Top jar with a sterilized lid and then a sterilized ring. Put into hot water bath (making sure that hot water is over the top of the lid and jar. Process in hot water bath for approximately 30 minutes. Pull up rack on canning pot and place jars on a towel on counter to cool. After cooling make sure that lids (rings) are on tight. Check lid (flat lid on jar). To check lid see if when you press down on center of lid that it does not depress (the sealing should have already depressed the lid to the max). If it makes a pop sound or can be depressed then the jar is not sealed and must be used immedately or re-processed with new lid and ring. Be sure to label jars so that you can rotate your food.

I only use the perfect fruit when I am doing halves. Slices or jam you can use the balance of the fruit. Peaches also to prepare you can put them into hot water and then the peel will come off pretty easy.

Let me know if you would like some more recipes. Another really good one is Meat Sauce (relish) that is great so are Bread and Butter pickles- neither sweet nor sour.

[Nicko]

Flavored oils should always be refrigerated that have a very short shelf life depending on what you put into them. I have generally always left my vinegards out but kept them sealed.

There is a great article on ChefTalk.com about flavored oil and their preparation:

Making Home-Brewed Vinegar

Infused Oils (complete with photos)