Tomato Jam
By David Harbilas
There are many methods and variations to tomato jam, and this is one of the simplest.
Like most, it contains a mixture of acid and sugar, but it doesn’t contain much else.
It’s best used as a vehicle for another ingredient, rather than as a sauce on its own.
I recently used it in a tomato tart made with puff pastry and confit tomato, with the jam spread on the pastry and the tomato confit on top of the jam. It provides a different dimension of sweet and sour.
Makes about 1 cup of jam
- 3 large red tomatoes, peeled, seeded and diced
- ¼ cup champagne vinegar
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 sprig fresh thyme
In a non-reactive saucepan (stainless steel), combine all the ingredients and simmer slowly until thick and jam-like, 45 minutes to 1 hour. If the mix dries out without achieving a jam-like consistency, add a few tablespoons of water.
The idea is to let the juices of the tomato slowly caramelize with the sugar to make a sort of “dressing” for the pulp of the tomato, while the acid balances out the flavors.
