We have a small tree on the edge of our driveway, half buried in an overgrown laurel hedge. We barely noticed it until one year it started raining little green apples.

It turned out to be a sort of crab apple, or perhaps more correctly, a domesticated variety that had reverted to its wild state. Maybe someone dropped an apple core there many years ago.

The fruits are small and quite sour so I used them to make this jelly, which arrived in Suffolk from the United States via Northern Ireland.

I should explain. It began, from my point of view, with a Twitter conversation about jams and jellies with Erick from @picturebelfast. But the recipe, which he kindly shared, may go back much further. It comes from his grandmother, who he calls Grama, a lady called Carol Golden who lives in farming country in upstate New York. It is written on a small card kept in a tin bin where she stores recipes passed down through the family, from her own grandmother through to the current generation.

“She is the daughter of a dairy farmer,” Erick told me. “She’s known for being a grandma to everyone. She has cookie parties and canning parties for all the generations of kids to pass down her knowledge in a fun way.” If that makes her sound like a character from Little House on the Prairie, you should know she went to university after her kids were grown up and earned a master’s degree in early childhood education.

Grama adds, I’m told, a lot more garlic than is listed below so I don’t think she’ll mind if I say feel free to adapt it to your own tastes. Her family traditionally eats it with goose but it’s also excellent with lamb and pork. Recent guests at our house devoured an entire jar at one sitting.

The original quantities, given here with metric equivalents, are large so if you have fewer apples, reduce the amount of onions, vinegar, rosemary and garlic in ratio or to taste.