Sweet Pepper & Chilli Jam

This is a preserve or chutney, a ‘chilli jam’, that goes very well with cheeses, smoked meats, sausages, cold pies, prawns, crab-meat and barbecued food. The ‘heat’ of the jam is entirely down to your own personal taste, the recipe below gives a nice medium heat, with a little bit of a kick (but not too much) to add more heat simply add in a couple of extra chillies and another teaspoon of hot smoked paprika.

Note: ‘smoked’ paprika should be used in this recipe, rather than regular paprika, it gives a much richer and deeper flavour and colour to the jam. Recommended as a small appetizer: a small thin crustini toast topped with a thin hard creamy cheese (like a Caerphilly Cheese) and a small spoonful of this sweet pepper and chilli jam. The colour and taste of this combination is amazing.

Sweet Pepper And Chilli Jam Recipe

This will make about 1kg of sweet pepper and chilli jam

Recipe Ingredients:

• 500g sweet red peppers (weight when cored and deseeded)
• 2 large red chilli peppers, halved and deseeded
• 225g red onions, peeled and chopped roughly
• 350g cooking apples (Brambly) – (weight when peeled and cored)
• 225ml cider vinegar
• 200g white granulated sugar
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped very fine
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp hot smoked paprika

Recipe Method:

Sterilize the storage jars: Use dry, sterilized jam pots to store your chilli jam in. Always sterilize all the jam jars and lids etc, run them through a dishwasher on a hot rinse setting, or wash, rinse and then put them in the oven for 10 minutes on a medium heat. Be careful if using rubber seals etc., do them separately. Sterilized storage equipment means you can keep your jam for well over six months when made.

Prepare the red and chilli peppers by topping, tailing, cutting in half, coring and deseeding. Then cut both the peppers up into small pieces.

Peel and roughly chop up the red onions. Peel, core and roughly chop up the cooking apples. Peel and finely chop up the cloves of garlic.

Place the peppers, onion, garlic and apple into a tall preserving pan (a tall saucepan with a very heavy and thick base). Pour over the cider vinegar, add the hot smoked paprika, the sea salt and ground black pepper, and bring slowly up to the boil, partially cover the pan with a lid, turn the heat down and simmer for 20 minutes. Over the 20 minutes stir occasionally and mash everything down as it softens with a wooden spoon. After 20 minutes remove from the heat and allow to cool.

When the ingredients in the preserving pan are cool either use a stick blender to blend everything down (if the pan is tall enough to contain the splashes) or carefully pour into a normal blender and blend into a smooth and thick puree.

Return the chilli and sweet pepper puree to the pan (if necessary) turn the heat up low and stir in the sugar. Stir steadily as the sugar dissolves. Taste the sweet pepper and chilli jam, add in more sugar or hot smoked paprika to taste. Turn up the heat and bring the jam slowly up to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer on a medium heat for another 20 minutes.

The liquid should evaporate and the chilli jam thicken, stir occasionally. After 20 minutes turn off the heat and spoon or pour the sweet pepper and chilli jam into the prepared and sterilized jam or preserving jars and seal. Use within 6 months and if opened store the jar in the fridge.