Green Tomato Jam

Back in the day when a kitchen garden was the norm, every opportunity was taken to avoid waste and maximise what produce was grown, whether it ripened in the season or not. Green tomatoes can be fondly and fatteningly used in fried recipes, but they also make marvellous marmalade or jam.

Old Fashioned Green Tomato and Apple Jam

• 1 1/2 kg (3lb) green tomatoes, chopped finely
• 3 cups water
• 1 kg (2lb) cooking apples,
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger (or 1cm piece, finely chopped)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 3/4 kg (3 1/2lb) sugar

Method

Put tomatoes into a wide saucepan with the water. Cook for five minutes, until soft.

Peel apples and discard skin. Slice apples and keep pips. Add to the tomatoes with the ginger and cloves. Cook until soft.

Add sugar and cook over a low heat, stirring constantly until the sugar is dissolved. Do not allow the jam to boil until all the sugar is dissolved.

When sugar is dissolved, bring to the boil and boil rapidly until the jam reaches the setting point.

Pour into warm sterilised jars and seal immediately. Label when cooled.

Tips on Jam Making

If jars don’t have lids, jam can be covered with two layers of greaseproof paper and one layer of aluminium foil, then tied securely with string. There should be a small space between the top of the jam and the lid.

For a milder, fresh ginger flavour bruise a full piece of ginger (1 to 2 cm, or 1 inch long) into the jam with the other ingrediants, and fish it out before bottling.

Whole cloves can be used in the cooking and then left in the jar for a cottage aesthetic.

Setting point is determined when the jam has cooked to a thick texture: the jam should not run off the spoon when the spoon is lifted from the pot. Instead it should drip slowly, forming a clot on the edge of the spoon. Dripping a few drops of hot jam onto a saucer chilled in the freezer, should result in a skin forming after the saucer has been returned to the freezer for a couple of minutes. At this point the jam is ready to bottle.

Jars can be sterilised by placing in a low oven after washing in hot soapy water, or half fill jars with cold water and bring to the boil in the microwave (1 1/2 to 2 minutes on HIGH). Jar lids should be placed in a saucepan with water covering and brought to the boil.

Remember that cooking with hot sugar and fruit can give horrendous burns that stick, so be careful and keep cold water nearby for quick treatments.

If jam doesn’t set, and the cook is not interested in re-boiling the jam or adding jam setting product, the mixture is still not wasted as it makes a delicious topping on ice cream, or a nice fruit sauce for cakes or puddings. Mixed with similar uncooked fruit such as apples, it can also make a good fruit pie filling.

Jam making is worth the effort, particularly when doing so utilises produce that might otherwise have been wasted. How nice to dip into the pantry and find some jam from the summer’s garden, to slather on hot toast or scones, and there are always eager recipients of homemade jam to be found.

Also see Green Tomato Chutney, for an old fashioned, savoury use for unripened tomatoes.