Chilli jam…sweet and spicy
For breakfast, on rare occasions, I like to have a toast slathered with butter and jam. Specially when we go for holidays in European countries and all what a vegetarian like me can see is bread, butter and variety of jams.
As much I like the jam,I dislike it equally. Do you know why? its because I start looking for something spicy to balance the sweetness in my mouth. This need not to be the story for everyone . Some people like and some people just don’t like jam. Im just a confused soul in this case.
Happened to see the chilli jam in supermarket and I grabbed it thinking it will be my kind of jam ‘sweetness with hint of spice’. But to my sadness , it wasn’t. It was a perfectly sweet jam made with peppers. So I made my own version.
How is this different from supermarket siblings?
The ones I tried were mostly sweet as they are made from sweet peppers, so they are just to say ‘chilli’ ones but they lack the kick and heat of the chillies.
I’ve added our own spicy green chillies minus the seeds.This adds the heat to jam but its balanced with the overall sweetness of jam. To add to flavour, I’ve dropped in some aromatic spices which have their subtle flavour ,heat as well as taste.
Can you use it just like jam?
It is not extremely hot recipe so yes, you can use it on toast if your tastebuds permit.But in general , chilli jams are used for spreading on a baguette sandwich, on grain crackers, to spread on tortilla or wraps. My daughtie has replaced the sweet chilli sauce with this jam. She just loves it.
No preservatives:
Naturally, as this jam is homemade the shelf life depends on the care you take while handling. Storage is must in air tight glass jar. Whereas, once you start using, you must refrigerate till it finishes.
- These are the peppers I’ve used.
Steps to make:
2.On low medium heat melt sugar with lemon juice and water. Pulse all peppers and simmer them with rest of the ingredients.
3.The jam cooks within 10-12 minutes.But still looks slimy. Let it cool off. It sets and becomes thicker.
4. Enjoy with piece of toast or as you like it.
: Recipe Card :
| Prep Time | 5 minutes |
| Cook Time | 20 minutes |
| Servings |
gms
|
- 150 gms long sweet red peppers (ramiro) (3-4 )
- 1 big red pepper
- 1-2 green chillies
- 1 cup jam sugar
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 cloves
- 1 4inch cinnamon stick
- 2 black pepper
- pinch of salt
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
Ingredients
|
|
- Wash and dry chillies. Remove the seeds from all chillies. Later pulse them together in a food chopper or food processor until a coarse mixture is formed. Don't make a fine paste.
- In a wide pan, add the sugar, lemon juice and water. ( Over low to medium heat)
- As the first boil comes , add the chillies mixture, cinnamon, cloves & black peppers. Boil the mixture for 10-12 minutes on low- medium heat.
- Mixture starts thickening as it boils. After 12 minutes, you can see the jam hardly has any water left. It becomes quite slimy mixture but not yet a jam consistency. Still switch off the flame.
- Let the jam cool off for half an hour, uncovered. As it cools down it becomes thicker to resemble the jam. After 30 minutes you will be surprised to see it becomes nice spreadable jam.
- Store in an airtight jam jar. Refrigerate as we don't have any added preservatives in it.
- You can substitute jam sugar with caster sugar.But the jam sugar has added pectin in it which helps the jam to set. For the fruit jams we don't need pectin as the fruits have them naturally.
- Shelf life is 1 year .Refrigeration is must as we don't have any added preservatives.
- Use asa spread for wraps, can easily replace use of sweet chilli sauce, on baguette sandwiches, with crackers , etc.
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