TOMATO JAM

Several years ago I made a tomato pate using small cherry tomatoes.  I used it as an appetizer and made enough that I would be taking it to friends' homes when invited over for a meal.  I had been thinking about making this pate again as the recent tomato haul from the garden was pretty good.  There are lots of tomatoes to use and to just freeze them doesn't help me as there are still frozen tomatoes in the freezer from last summer.  Recently a friend posted a recipe on facebook for tomato jam that she had just made.  She thought it was great.  This recipe is a bit different than the one I made several years ago.  I thought I would try it as variety is always good.  The original recipe called for 3/4 of a cup of sugar but I thought that would be too much so I decreased the quantity.  I also used only 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes instead of a full teaspoon.  I don't always seed tomatoes when using in recipes but I did seed these and it does make a difference especially as the tomatoes are cooked down and you don't want to a concentration of tomato seeds.  For the tomato pate recipe that I made several years ago, the cherry tomatoes were not seeded (that would have been a futile exercise seeding small cherry tomatoes) and I found it to a very dense seedy pate.

What do you use tomato jam for?  Tomato jam can be used in place of ketchup, on a cracker with cheese, as an ingredient in salad dressing, in a grilled cheese sandwich or used as the sauce in a pizza.

To cook the jam, I used a Staub cast iron cooking pot.  Le Creuset or other heavy cooking pots would also work to cook this jam for several hours and not worry about it sticking to the bottom of the pot.  The jam is very good and the red pepper flakes add enough zip to make it more of a bolder taste.

Jam starting to cook for the next few hours.

INGREDIENTS:

1/3  cup sugar
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
10 cups of ripe tomatoes, skinned, seeded, coarsely chopped
1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 tsp kosher salt

DIRECTIONS:

Add the sugar, vinegar and water to a 6 quart heavy duty cooking pot.  Heat to a boil, reduce heat to medium and cook for about five minutes.  Stir occasionally as you want the liquid mixture to be a bit syrupy.  Add the tomatoes, red pepper flakes and salt.  Heat to a boil and reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for about 2 to 2.5 hours until the tomato jam has thickened.  Stir occasionally especially as it thickens.  Season with more salt if required and let cool.  Place into small jars and either keep in the fridge or freeze.  If left in the fridge it should last for several weeks.  Makes about 3 cups.

Adapted from www.finecooking.com