Late spring/early summer is when mulberry trees deliver the good stuff. My kids love picking the sweet, intensely purple berries, but this year was the first time I discovered the leaves were edible, too.
I cooked them a la stuffed grape leaves, picking ones that were big enough to stuff but young and tender enough so they wouldn’t be too tough and fibrous. You also need to prep them by boiling for about two minutes to make the leaves pliable enough to work with. Don’t overboil, or you’ll end up with a mushy mess on your hands!
We also had enough berries to make jam this year. If you try it, just be aware that mulberries STAIN big time: kids’ hands, clothes, kitchen towels, work surfaces. I later discovered purple fingerprints on the refrigerator handle.
Mulberries don’t have a lot of pectin, so you either need to add some or boil the jam for a long time to thicken it. I happened to have a pomelo on hand, so I chopped up some of the white spongy pith, stuffed it in a couple of muslin bags (the ones I typically use for teas), and let it cook together with the jam. I also added some lemon juice. It set pretty nicely after cooling.
I forgot to remove the stems, which isn’t a disaster, but can influence texture. A quick whir in the blender solved this problem. Yum!
Domestic Felicity 