It’s that time again! My chillis are not ready yet – the season is very late, despite them being in the greenhouse, but I met a delightful woman in the farmers’ market (chilli gold) who has the most amazing variety including yellow and orange Scotch Bonnets (she also sells ready-made sauces)…so I decided to make some chilli jam as I’m out of stock. The recipe is adapted from a Sarah Raven one. I made slightly more than this using 800g of tomatoes to make 4 small jars,  and pro-rated the ingredients – perhaps I should have kept the chilli count the same! It gets better with age, so I’ll not use it until October/November.

Makes 3 small jars

• 500g very ripe tomatoes
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 4 large red chillies (seeds left in if you want your jam hot)
• 6-7cm piece of ginger root, sliced
• 300g golden caster sugar
• 2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
• 1 tsp cardamom pods
• 100ml red wine vinegar

Method

Blitz the tomatoes with all the 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.

Simmer gently for up to two hours until the liquid has almost evaporated and  the mixture  turns slightly darker and sticky.

Store in warm dry sterilised jars and seal while the mixture is still warm.  It keeps for about 3 months in the fridge when open.