First ever attempt at Jam

[Philthy]

I tried my hand at making jam a week ago. Not made anything like that before.
I found a recipe online for a tomato and chilli jam.
Chief ingredients were tomatoes (shop bought), and red chillies (from GH; I opted for a Thai variety). Remaining ingredients were: garlic, ginger, golden caster sugar, red wine vinegar, and a splash of Thai fish sauce (all shop bought).
The method looked to be pretty straightforward; prepare the vegetables, then put in a blender until pureed, pour into a pan, add sugar and other liquid, bring to boil, then simmer for 40 minutes. I did all of this, then poured the mixture into sterilised jars and sealed them.
Come the following morning, the 'jam' had all the stiffness of a cup of tea, so clearly something had gone wrong. It did however taste fantastic, with perfect heat.

I explained the problem to a friend with far more knowledge on the subject, and was told to source 2 lbs of cooking apples, chop them up and gently heat with a little water, until the apple turned to mush, and then strain all the liquid from the mush. Return the failed jam sauce to the pan, add the apple liquid and some more sugar, then boil for a few minutes. Then take a sample and conduct a saucer test to check whether it was starting to thicken. Repeat the process of boiling and testing until it did. So I did all of that yesterday evening.

Thing was, the jam was so runny I was boiling it for a good 20-25 minutes before it started to finally thicken. It started to ressemble jam as I poured it back into the jars (re-washed and sterilised again), and now it has cooled it has set just enough to qualify as a jam. However, the taste is ruined. Before I had all the subtle flavours of the chilli, plus tomato and garlic. The dominating flavours now are of capsicum (just the burn), vinegar, and it's too sweet.

I wonder, was the issue the lack of naturally occurring pectin in tomatoes and / or chillies, whether I should have added extra pectin (I saw jam sugar on the shelf when I went to buy the golden caster sugar), the water content of tomatoes not being properly considered when the recipe was conceived, or was the heat too low first time around..?
I looked up a different jam recipe this eveing, and according to that author, the whole cooking process should take no longer than 4 minutes!!

Definately worth trying again though

[Alison]

You're basically right about the pectin. I make a tomato and chilli dipping sauce / chutney every year which can end up too runny too. As you say the water content of the toms is relevant too. One final thing, IF you have the right amount of pectin etc and you get it to a high rolling boil you will have reached setting point. The jam will still seem very runny but will set beautifully. Oh and yet another thing, although called a jam, it isn't truly a jam as it has vinegar in so you've started with a difficult one. Probably easiest to start with a simple fruit one such as blackberry and apple, all you do with that is take 50 / /50 of the two fruits and the same total weight of sugar. Cook fruit till soft, add sugar and dissolve, turn up height to setting point boil and then you're done. Good luck with whatever you try

[Philthy]

Hi Alison, thanks for that info. What do you mean by 'a rolling boil' ?

[Scarlet]

A rolling boil is when the jam/jelly is boiling vigorously with big bubbles,(you need a big pan because it rises a lot and spits) often when the bubbles become smaller your jam has reached setting point.Have a g@@gle there's bound to be some videos that show it better than I can explain!

[Guest]

Hi Philthy I don't suppose I could have the recipe please? I have some toms and chilly need using. I will let you know the outcome

[Philthy]

Of course, Norfolkgrey.

It is a Sarah Raven recipe, from the Telegraph originally I think. As follows:

500g tomatoes (some green through to very ripe, doesn't matter)
4 garlic cloves, peeled
4 large red chillies (seeds left in if you want extra heat)
6cm-7cm piece of ginger root, peeled and roughly sliced
300g golden caster sugar
2 tbsp Thai fish sauce
100ml red wine vinegar

Blitz tomatoes, garlic, chillies and ginger in a food processor. Pour into a heavy-based saucepan.

Add the sugar, fish sauce and vinegar and bring to the boil, stirring slowly. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 30-40 minutes, stirring from time to time. The mixture will turn slightly darker and sticky.

Store in warm, dry sterilised jars and seal while the mixture is warm. The longer you keep the jam the hotter it gets.

At these quantities, you should get 6 small jars worth.

Makes it sound so simple
Yes, please do let me know how your's turns out

[Guest]

Sorry for the delay, I now have a more informed response (with pics )

Before jarring (spot the original recipe)


Once jarred and cooled (again spot the original recipe)


Don't get me wrong this is by no means thick or what I would class as a jam, however it is ridiculously addictively yummy

If you would like to know how I got it thicker, if you send a cheque to........

Take 600g of toms (instead of 500g and include some ripe red ones the colour is slightly better and I think flavour but would have to do another test to make sure) roughly chop and add 1.5tsp of salt, stir/mix and leave overnight. In the morning drain DO NOT RINSE and follow recipe as normal.

FYI by doing this I strained off 150ml from the toms.

oh and 6 small jars was two 450g hartley jam jars should anyone else want a go.

Hope my help isn't too late

[Scarlet]

I'll get some fresh ginger and give it a go on the weekend....

[Philthy]

Well done, Norfolkgrey
That's a good tip on the tomatoes. Tell me, what sugar did you use, and how long did you boil / simmer for?

I've further educated myself with some youtube videos (probably should've done that in the first place, ah well).
One of those examples demonstrated a similar chilli jam, with just a few variants on the posted recipe; finely chop the chillies by hand rather than puree them in a blender, replace the tomatoes with red peppers (a lot less water I'm guessing), add lime zest to the ingredients, and replace caster sugar with jam sugar.
Also, as per the advice here, the cooking process consists of boiling (10 minutes ish), no simmering required.

One thing I'm not short of right now are chillies, so I'm going to play with them and see what I can create. I'll test run with something basic like Alison suggests.

[Guest]

I followed the recipe. Bring to boil simmer 30-40mins. I did use normal caster rather than golden but that is what I had in the cupboard.

If you make jam with jam sugar it takes only a few mins to cook. I personally don't tend to trust/like this method and I have no idea why. Otherwise jam will take 30+ mins to cook.

Have a play and enjoy yourself. Keep us posted on the results oh and if I end up with runny jam (sweet) it gets palmed off as ice cream sauce - its still yummy just another inventive use

[Scarlet]

One of those examples demonstrated a similar chilli jam, with just a few variants on the posted recipe; finely chop the chillies by hand rather than puree them in a blender, replace the tomatoes with red peppers (a lot less water I'm guessing), add lime zest to the ingredients, and replace caster sugar with jam sugar..

I'm giving it a go later. I'm simmering my toms at the moment to reduce the water content.

[Scarlet]

A simple chilli jelly recipe that will set and is much easier is to follow a crab apple jelly recipe and add your chillies at the end.

[ancee]

My son and I made a chilli jam for the first time last week, well I say my son and I.... He tasted and talked, I made the jam. It wasn't really jam like though but we don't care and it was lovely it's already gone!
I'm a 'Make it up as you go along' type of a cook, but he insisted I wrote it down as my memory is not as it should be!
So this is it, very, very easy and really tasty:
No specific measurements, we just kept tasting until we were happy.
Blitz in food processor, tomatoes, (cereal bowl full) peppers (3 smallish from garden) 1 red onion and a couple of chillies.
Put it in pan and heat.
Add paprika, chilli flakes, dark brown sugar, couple splashes vinegar and couple spoonful of jam sugar.
Bubble for a bit, till veg softens and it thickens up. = done!
Tastes amazing on bacon butties and as a dip for French toast (eggy bread) x

[Scarlet]

To be honest I love the nigella recipe and that often ends up as a runny sauce - still tastes good and I have loads of requests for it on their Xmas pressie list!

http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/chilli-jam-2692

[Philthy]

Success!!!

Had a session in the kitchen today. Success! The jam not only looks the part, but is damn tasty too My only regrets are that it didn't make as much as expected, and that I've already eaten half a jars' worth just with a spoon before I've actually spread it on anything!

So I took the original recipe and tweaked it a bit, using the great advice from this thread, and elsewhere...

I blitzed 600g tomatoes (I opted for san marzano - don't know if that makes any difference), in a food processor, but not for too long, then poured through a fine sieve. Once approx 130 ml of liquid had dribbled through, the tomato pulp was returned to the processor (and excess liquid discarded). I added the prepared chillies (orange thai, same as before - they're about an 8/10 on the heat scale. Not sure what weight of chillies I used; I went with quantity.. 15 I think), garlic, and ginger. I also added x1 sweet pointed red pepper, zest of x1 lime, x1 tsp paprika, and the Thai fish sauce. Blend all of that together, but not to the point of puree.
Meanwhile, put sugar and vinegar in a pan, and heat gently without stirring until sugar dissolves (this time I used 2/3 caster sugar, 1/3 jam sugar).
Add other ingredients to pan, heat to boiling, then maintain the rolling boil for 10 mins, stirring occasionally. Then simmer for 20 mins. Finally, rest for 15 mins before jarring.

End result is a perfect consistancy; neither runny nor stiff, and it tastes fantastic! It encourages a fine sweat on ones' brow

Thanks for all your help