Tomato Jam

Sunday and Monday night found me doing something I haven't done in literally years.  I found this recipe on Pinterest months ago, it's been haunting me ever since, and Sunday night, I just couldn't take it anymore; I had to tackle it.  I felt literally giddy, driving to the store and loading up on piles of tomatoes, ginger, chiles and spices - it had been a long, long time since I girded up my loins for a serious kitchen project.  Not only that, but, as much as I love cooking in all of its forms, there are a few, shall we say, genres, that are especially close to my heart.  Bread and pastry is one; preserving is the other, and preserving is what was on the agenda.  Specifically, I was going to make tomato chile jam.  I know, I know; I can hear the groans already.  (Why can't you make something normal, like strawberry or something?)  I can't help it, people!  I see ingredients like garam masala, palm sugar, mustard seeds and ginger, and I just have to know what it tastes like!  Plus, you know how Pinterest is; the picture is so ooily, gooily perfect, your mouth starts watering on the spot!

So, here goes...

Tomato Chile Jam - makes ten 8-ounce jars
(as adapted by yours truly - here's a link to the original, for those who are interested)

9 pounds - plum tomatoes (I used the regular, nasty grocery store ones.  I can only imagine the results if one were to use fresh garden tomatoes...)
1/4 cup - olive oil
2 Tablespoons - ground cumin
2 Tablespoons - garam masala (for the record, I LOVE this stuff.  I even put it in my granola.)
6 Tablespoons - brown sugar
2 Tablespoons - whole cumin seeds
1/4 cup - whole yellow mustard seeds
3/4 cup - red wine vinegar
11 ounces - palm sugar (you can usually find this at Asian markets or sometimes in the Asian section of the grocery store - it's kind of a liquidy brown sugar)
1/2 cup - fish sauce (also found in the Asian section at the grocery store.  And trust me, it reeks when you sniff it.  Don't say I didn't warn you.)
5 ounces - fresh ginger, peeled and grated
14 cloves - garlic, peeled and crushed (I used a garlic press)
10 - red chiles, deseeded and finely chopped (keep in mind, the heat is in the seeds and the white ribs inside the pepper.  The more heat you want, the more seeds and ribs you leave in.  When you take it all out, you're left with flavor, but not much heat.)
Kosher salt to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Peel and core the tomatoes and then slice them in half lengthwise.  (I added the peeling step just now.  I'm kind of not happy with the whole skin in my jam thing.  How to peel tomatoes?  Cut a little "X" in the ends, dip them in boiling water for a few seconds, and then plunge them in ice water.  The skins will slip right off.)  Spread the tomatoes on foil-covered baking sheets, flesh side up.  You want to keep them in a single layer.  (I filled two baking sheets really really full.)  Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with ground cumin, garam masala, brown sugar and cumin seeds, and season to taste with kosher salt.

Roast for about an hour or so; you want the tomatoes to start to caramelize and brown a bit.  (The recipe called for 30-40 minutes, but I found it took more than an hour.)  Meanwhile, toast the mustard seeds in a small skillet over medium heat until they start to pop.  Take them off the heat right away and then grind them to powder in a spice grinder.  (I use a little coffee grinder for this purpose.)

Once your tomatoes come out of the oven, toss them into a big pot, along with all of the other ingredients.  (Chopping and grating all of that stuff will keep you plenty busy, trust me.)  Get everything nice and hot and starting to bubble on medium heat (stirring pretty regularly), and then turn it down to low and simmer for three or four hours, or until it all gets sticky and jammy.  It's a good idea to stir the pot every so often so nothing sticks and it cooks evenly, but frankly, I entertained a series of visitors and made a Starbucks run in there, and everything turned out just fine, so it's a pretty mellow undertaking.  The longer you cook it (shy of burning it, of course), the sweeter and more caramelized it gets, so don't be shy or in a rush.

Once it's all nicely cooked down, spoon the hot jam into hot, sterilized jars, filling the jars to a quarter inch from the top.  (For those uninitiated into the wonders of food preservation, hot and sterilized means you wash the jars, rings and lids in hot, soapy water, and then put them in a pot, cover with water, and bring to a simmer.  This kills bad germs.  I usually put my jars in my boiling water bath and my lids and rings in a little saucepan.  Makes them easier to access when I need them.)  Wipe the top of the jars with a clean rag to remove any residue (residue will mess with your seal), screw a lid and ring on pretty securely, and process in a boiling water bath (water covering the jars by at least an inch) for ten minutes.  After ten minutes, remove the jars from the boiling water and let them cool on a towel on your counter.  This is where the most awesome part happens.  You're cruising along, wiping up your counter and putting stuff away, and, all of a sudden, you hear this POP.  Yeah.  That's the jars doing their magical sealy-thingy.  It's a total thrill - you do all this stuff, follow all the steps all careful-like, crossing your fingers and hoping the whole time that everything does what it's supposed to, and then...VOILA!  It actually works!  I get a big kick out of it, every time.

How does it taste?  Amazing.  It has this huge, bold flavor that kind of fills up the room.  Not a speck of boring in that jar, no sir.  The only thing I might do different next time is dial the fish sauce down a bit.  Maybe a quarter cup?  I definitely like the umami quality it brings, so I wouldn't completely eliminate it, though.

What to do with it?  It would be killer in a cheese sandwich, or with cheese and crackers.  It would make an amazing dip or spread for pita or foccacia or any kind of flatbread, really.  It would make a nice sauce for meat or fish, and I'm thinking of creating a savory pie, with a puff pastry or phyllo crust, maybe a nice ricotta filling, and then this jam as a topping.  Serve it with a salad or as an appetizer.  I ate some tonight with an eggplant I found in my crisper drawer and roasted, and it totally jazzed up some boiled potatoes I mopped it up with.  So, yeah, lots of options.  

Of course, if you happen to live in my neck of the woods and you want to taste without the bother, I do have a few jars here!