Facebook memories, or ‘On This Day', or whatever it's called, has been rolled out to nearly everyone I know there except me, it seems. No, well, I tell a lie. I had it for one day, then after 24 hours was primly told that I was yet again amongst the undeserving.
Sorry, this feature isn't available
Nicola, thanks for coming to see your memories. Currently, this feature isn't available to everyone.
Pff. Not that I believe most of my memories are worthy of another trawl through the timeline, but it would be nice not to be the only one of my friends who doesn't even have the chance to annoy everyone with something that happened on this day, eleven years ago. Just as an example...
But I can make a blog post. If I had a white cat sitting on my lap just now, I would be stroking it, and chuckling in a menacing manner!
For you see, eleven years ago today I fell down some worn and uneven steps outside a Portuguese church and broke my foot. It's a long story involving a too-long dress, too-high heels, and the heady feeling of pride that comes after singing a really good concert, followed rapidly by a tumble down a dozen or so ancient steps in front of the entire audience who had only just vacated the venue before me.
Anyway, I'm digressing slightly, because this post will actually be about sweet tomato jam, and not my phenomenal powers of being able to embarrass myself so proficiently in front of others...
Wait! There's a link! Honest! The connection between this and my unenviable gift of self-mortification is that whilst staying in Portugal for rehearsals I came across the most wondrous taste explosion that is tomato jam. (It's a tenuous link, sure, but it's a link none-the-less!) It was unlike any other jam I had tasted (and I have tasted many, as my mother is a jam- and jelly-making machine). But tomato? My northern tomatoes-are-exotic-and-grown-in-greenhouses-and-not-to-be-wasted-en-masse mind was blown. Or at least blown until my foot threw a spanner in the old memory-making apparatus making all flashbacks pertaining to the trip centre on excruciating pain, and not exceedingly good jam.
The anniversary of Tumble-Gate coincided neatly with a rather effusive ripening of tomatoes of all shapes and sizes in Dad's greenhouse. On the whole we're not a huge eaters of tomatoes. We'll crunch through them in salads, fry the odd few with Sunday breakfast, and my Dad is rather fond of red onion and tomato sarnies, but we'll usually use up what becomes ripe before it becomes the dreaded no-longer-ripe. Faced with a couple of kilos of ruby beauties all ready to be picked at once and not knowing what to do with them is when my memory kicked in, by-passed the foot fiasco, and settled squarely on breakfast in Portugal: toast, and tomato jam.
Needless to say, I don't have the actual Portuguese recipe, but this was the only sweet tomato jam recipe I could find online (there are many chutneys and savoury recipes to be found, though), and luckily the sweet version tastes just as I remember it!
You need:
1360g (3lbs) tomatoes (I used a variety of... um, varieties.)
240 ml honey
300g granulated sugar
2 vanilla pods (split)
½ tsp lemon zest (although I just used the whole lemon. Who only uses that tiny amount???)
2 tbsp lemon juice
pinch of sea salt
½ tsp freshly chopped rosemary (not part of the written recipe, but added because our Portuguese accommodation was surrounded by wild rosemary bushes and I find rosemary and tomato a lovely combination at any time!)
Firstly I cut little crosses into the bottom of the tomatoes to make the skins a little easier to remove after their water torture.
Then, in batches, I added tomatoes to boiling water for thirty to sixty seconds, then plunged them into ice-cold water for thirty seconds, and the skins were easy-peasy to peel off.
I'm not saying it wasn't messy, because it was, but still a lot easier than trying out non-existent mad knife skillz attempting to skin the poor wee things cold. Unless, of course, you have actual Mad Knife Skillz™, then please, have at it!
Oh, and don't forget to prepare your jam-jars by washing them in hot soapy water, rinsing them well, then placing them in a decently hot oven (around 100C I reckon) to dry completely. Having hot jars ready for the jam also means that there is less chance of a jar exploding when decanting the hot stuff. Double whammy - scalding hot jam, and sharp shards of glass. Heat your jars, people!!
The next part is truly easy, just time-consuming, as all you need to do it add everything to a decent-sized pot and simmer-boil away until that time when a wrinkle test gives you a positive result. I was stirring for about an hour until I saw the light and added the rest of the lemon juice to help thicken it to a decent consistency, but YYMV!
Once wrinkly jam has been attained, take out the vanilla pods, and ladle the good stuff carefully into the prepared jars, add the papers and other jam-making paraphernalia, and leave to cool. Or, alternatively, burn your the roof of your mouth on a fresh spoonful because the smell was too intoxicating not to have a taste right then and there.
10/10 Would burn again.
No comments:
Post a Comment