:: GourmetOrange ::: Home Made Chilli Jam

My collegue miss Donna, multi talented kitchen queen - marmalade & jam maker, best raspberry tart maker, curry, pies, or anything & everything from Donna's kitchen. She always make everything yummy and fantastico. Donna loves experimenting new recipes too & I am always happy to be her guinea pig. She does give me a bit of inspiration to be a bit more hard working in the kitchen LOL, here I am experimenting my chilli jam. This is my first time making chilli jam & it turns to be not as scary as I thought. A bit of prep time but I am really pleased with my jam - it is full of natural goodness, no preservatives added watsoever, and I used real tomatoes. Color wise, it is not giving me the vibrant red that I want (perhaps I have to use more capsicum than tomatoes next time), but dont judge the book by its cover, it tastes great !! Okie...my recipe was done using the long way method ..this can be short cut by using whole peeled tomatoes from the can.

Ingredients:
Part (1) - Put them in food processor, run till fairly smooth

3 stalks lemon grass - only use the white part, cut diagonally
100 gr ginger
2 red chilli - remove seeds if you want to reduce the spicy-ness
2 cloves garlic
3 kaffir lime leaves

Part (2) - Prepare diced tomatoes
** For short cut version, omit Part 2, replace with canned whole peeled tomato, cut each tomato into 6 **

800gr tomato - in a pot, boiled tomatoes till skins cracked open, scoop them out and cool them. Once cool, peel the skin off & remove core, cut each tomato into 6.

Part (3) - Other ingredients:

300 gr chopped onion
2 red capsicum, remove seeds & chopped
Grated lime skin from 1 lime
2 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2-3/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoon salt

Method:

Heat up olive oil in a pot (preferably thick based pot)
Stir fry onion, garlic, capsicum until fragrant and soft
Add remaining ingredients
Bring to the boil for about 15-20 mins, stir occasionally
Simmer for about 30mins-1hour
Cook until liquid is minimal, and you get thick and sticky jam
Once ready, transfer to glass jam jar

Note:

Total time required: approx. 1.5 hour
To make approx. 2.5 litre of chilli jam
If you store it in sterilised glass jar, it can last up to 3 months, for sterilising method, there are quite a few in youtube, this video is quite easy to follow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS7SC3UGkII

How to serve Chilli jam?
Chilli jam can be served with ....