Chilli Jam
Time: days
Serves: 2 liters
Ingredients & Prep
500g de-seeded chillis (leave 4 whole)
500g onion - sliced however you like
4 garlic cloves - mashed
1kg tiny tomatoes - halved
900g sugar
4 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp light soy sauce
If you don’t like tomato skins in your jam, you can remove them before the jamming stage by popping them into some boiling water for a few minutes, and then let them cool off. Peal thereafter.
How to
Do not go off menu leaving the seeds in, thinking you’re a bad man; The seeds and placental tissue taste like badger anus after maceration, and contrary to belief they aren’t the only place where the spicies are.
Day 1:
Add chillis and 200g of sugar to a tub, and give it a good shimmy. Leave it overnight. This process is called “Maceration”, it makes it taste good.
Day 2:
Add the onion, garlic and a sprinkle of sugar to a large pan, big enough for the whole deal. Bring this to a medium heat, and wait for the onions to soften. Once softened, crank up the heat and get some caramel action going.
Once caramelised, remove from heat.
Add the following:
Tomatoes
Lemon juice
Balsamic vinegar
Soy sauce
Macerated chillies
Remaining sugar (700g)
Cover with water and bring to the boil.
Apologise in advance to everything within a 2 foot radius of your pan, and put on some shoes if you’ve not already. Boiling sugar is superbly painful. Caution is advised.
This part takes a while but you basically need to boil forever, gradually reducing down. Check periodically by doing the following:
Take a blob of the stuff,
Put it on a cold plate,
Stand plate to 90 degrees,
if it runs after cooling, it’s not done
Once it’s finished, finely dice your remaining 4 chillies and dump them in. Don’t worry about removing seeds or tissue with these are you’ll barely notice.
