Aunt Jayashree's Indian Plum Preserves

My Aunt Jayashree down in California prepared this one using the fruits of their bountiful plum tree. I had never tasted anything like it. She was kind enough to share the recipe.

Ingredients
2-3 pounds of plums (enough to make 5 quarts of plum pulp)
1 cup water
3/4 tsp Salt
Oil
Dried Red Chillies
Fenugreek Seed

Preparation

1. Add the whole plums and the water into a pan, bring to a boil, and them reduce to medium heat to cook the plums. As you cook the plums,
   they let out their juices, so there's no need to add too much water.
   
2. After cooking, wait for the plums to cool, then peel the skins off and
   take the pits out. Set the pulp aside.
   
   
3. In another pan (that should be big enough to hold the pulp that you have), add a small amount of oil and roast the dried red chillies until they become dark red. The amount of chillies to roast is depends on the tartness of the pulp and the heat of the chillies, but is to taste. Next, add some fenugreek seed (available in Indian Grocery Stores, and sometimes called Methi seed) and let it roast only for few seconds as the oil will be pretty hot by this time.
   
   
4. Take the pan off the heat for a minute to prevent splattering when the pulp is finally added back.
   
5. Add the pulp to the pan, and simmer until the pulp starts to get thick.
   
6. Add sugar and salt to taste, but ensure that the salt taste does not come through. The salt will enhances the sweetness without having to add
   too much sugar, and will bring down the tartness of the plum as well.
   
   
7. Cook the pulp to jammy consistency & cool it before canning. As the sugar cools off, it gets thicker, so switch off the stove when it is some what jelly consistency.
   

Upon canning, it stays for a year or two easily.