I made this jam back before my trip to Portland and have been meaning to share it ever since. It came to be thanks to an impulse purchase at Reading Terminal Market, just days before I was set to fly. Many of the produce stands there bag up their rapidly ripening produce and sell them for a buck a bag.
When you buy one of the discounted sacks, you know what you’re getting. It’s soft, sweet, and needs to be used within a day. I did not need another canning project in that moment, but I could not resist the deal of getting more than five pounds of jammable produce for $4.
This is a honey sweetened jam that gets a set boost from Pomona’s Pectin. I’m finding myself moving more and more towards honey, maple sugar, and fruit juice concentrates for sweetening. I feel better when I use less refined sweeteners for my everyday preserves and am starting to save the sugar sweetened ones for special occasions. Such is the evolution of life and tastebuds, I guess.
I think of this as a fairly spicy jam, because I added two tablespoons of freshly grated ginger and 1 teaspoon of red chili flakes. However, I realize that for those of you who like something with a more powerful kick, this is going to taste fairly bland. Feel free to adjust the red chili flake upwards a bit or add a generous dash of cayenne. I don’t want anyone disappointed by my wimpy spice tolerance.
Finally, you might notice that this product is preserved in the six-sided jam jars that close with lug lids. If you’re curious about them, make sure to read the piece I wrote about how to use them a few weeks back.
And just one more thing! The idea to combine tomatoes and peaches in a jam was originally planted in my mind by a recipe in Breakfast for Dinner. Though I didn’t follow their recipe at all, this is the second time I’ve made something really good that was inspired by that book.
Spicy Peach and Yellow Tomato Jam
Ingredients
- 4 cups pitted peeled, and chopped yellow peaches
- 4 cups cored and chopped yellow tomatoes no need to peel or seed
- 4 teaspoons calcium water
- 2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- 1 teaspoon dried red chili flakes
- juice and zest of 2 lemons
- 2 cups honey
- 2 teaspoons Pomona's Pectin
Instructions
- Prepare a boiling water bath canner and enough jars to hold 3 1/2 pints of product. Place lids in a small saucepan of water and bring to a very low simmer.
- In a large jam pan, combine the peaches, tomatoes, calcium water, ginger, salt, red chile flakes, and lemon juice and zest. Bring to a boil and cook, stirring regularly, until the mixture has reduced by at least 1/4, at least 15 to 20 minutes.
- Once the fruit mixture has cooked down sufficiently, stir the pectin powder into the honey and add it to the pan.
- Stir to combine and let the jam cook at a low boil for another five minutes. Because Pomona's Pectin sets up a little differently, you don't want to cook too much once you've added the pectin powder.
- Remove jam from the heat and funnel into prepared jars.
- Wipe rims, apply lids and rings, and process in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes.
- When time is up, remove jars from canner and let them cool on a folded kitchen towel.
- Check seals when jars are cool. Sealed jars can be stored at room temperature. Unsealed jars should be refrigerated and used promptly.
- This jam is a good one for meats, burgers, and as a dipping sauce for roasted root vegetables.
Ginger. YES. This jam is gorgeous.
Curious though… what is calcium water and what is it for?
The calcium water is needed with the Pomona’s pectin – without going into too much detail, the pectin won’t work with out it! You get both the pectin powder and a calcium packet in a pomona’s box.
This sounds cool and I like spicy foods…but what would you use spicy jam for? Meats?
I finally cracked open the tomato-nectarine-jalapeno jam from last year. It’s perfect for a simple lunch on a crusty bun with sharp cheddar. Mine is too sweet for my taste to go with meat, but is wonderful with cheese. I also love a good spice with my biscuits, so it would be great in the morning with biscuits (and ham, I guess that’s one meat I wouldn’t mind with a sweet and spicy kick.)
Molly, I use my spicy jams and spreads with roasted meats, on grilled cheese sandwiches, with cheese and crackers, and I even used one (blood orange + hot pepper marmalade) to cook fish: http://gatherroundkitchen.com/2013/05/10/broiled-mahi-mahi-with-marmalade-recipe-giveaway/ It was really awesome!
Emily, your tomato-nectarine-jalapeño jam sounds amazing!
Ooohh, will def be trying this one and also will most likely add some extra spice to it since I love jams and preserves with an extra kick to them! Thank you for the post!
This sounds fantastic. I haven’t been able to find Pomona’s locally. How would this be without pectin (I don’t usually use pectin in tomato and peach jams)? Or alternatively, how much of a typical pectin would you use? A full powder packet?
Williams Sonoma carries the Pomona brand pectin, in case you have one near you. My local WS is well stocked this week, lots on the shelf. Or, they offer for sale online too but then you’ll incur shipping costs of course. It’s the only brand of pectin that they carry.
In case helpful:
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/pomonas-universal-pectin/?pkey=e%7Cpectin%7C1%7Cbest%7C0%7C1%7C24%7C%7C1&cm_src=PRODUCTSEARCH||NoFacet-_-NoFacet-_-Feature_Recipe_Rule-_-
Yay!
I’m really excited for more recipes using less refined sugars.
I love that you’re moving away from refined sugar! I am too, and this recipe looks amazing. We have peaches down the road and yellow tomatoes in the garden, so I’m sold. Thanks for sharing, Marisa!
Not sure what calcium water is? Hurry peaches on the sink.
Pomona’s pectin comes with a packet of calcium solution that you combine with water to make the calcium solution.
Many thanks Marissa !
Made two batches of this today, only added a home grown habanero (L.A. heat tolerance vs. Philly heat tolerance.) Our peaches were super sweet, so we cut the honey down to 1 cup. Pure nomful gold in a jar!
I made this jam this morning – goodness, it is delicious! I added extra pectin as I wanted to make sure it sets up well (5 tsp instead of 2 tsp). The color is brilliant. I will be eating it on a grilled cheese sandwich shortly! Thanks for yet another great recipe, Marisa.
This sounds divine just as it is and contains all of my favorite ingredients! Wonderful! I, too, am excited to see some more recipes with less refined sugar 🙂
The Jam looks amazing! Wow. I love shopping at Reading Terminal Market as well. how did the road trip go?
Ohhh, I think this is just the sort of combo that I needed to get me out of my doldrums and back into my canning kettle. Cheers and thanks, Marisa.
I made this recipe as is except I used 1.5 c of honey. It is soft, not firm, but really, that’s how I prefer these more savory jams.
I have been using less sugar/splenda combinations, along with all honey, all maple and some combinations with stevia for a few years now. We’ve really reduced our sugar consumption…it feels wrong to preserve this beautiful fruit with so much sugar it essentially becomes candy. I’ve been altering these gorgeous recipes, so I am so excited to see that Marisa is trying this out, too.
For those of you looking for Pomona Pectin, I buy mine by the pound from their website.
Wow this sounds incredible! I have a canning/tomatoes post next week. Now I wish I had added peaches! Pinned! Your jam is gorgeous! Love the ginger and red chili flakes, too!
We now have a store locator on our website: http://www.pomonapectin.com/store-locator/
It covers store in US & Canada – just enter your zip or postal code.
And thanks for creating such a great recipe with Pomona’s, Marisa. I’ll have to try it!
Hi! How many pounds of peaches and tomatoes would you say you used? I have lots of both yellow tomatoes and peaches and I want to make sure my proportions are right.
Thanks.
Unfortunately, I’m really not sure. I didn’t weigh them before chopping, only grabbed a volume measure.
I used a pound of tomatoes, and 7 large peaches!
This is super tasty! I cant wait to try it on top of some ginger marinated pork tenderloin! I have quite a lot of peaches left, and I’m debating making another batch….
I did make a couple changes. I always can with prepared lemon juice, for consistent acidity, so I used 1/3 cup…and a little splash. I also left out the chili flakes and just used 4 small serrano peppers from my garden, seeds in. they are my favorite for spice as its not tooooo crazy, but does have a good bite to it.
I found some beautiful yellow blush tomatoes at the farmers market, Im sure that helps in the tastiness! Thanks for helping add variety to my winter stash!
This recipes sounds great, but as someone with an allergy to ginger, is there something you would recommend to go in its place – or just go without altogether?
Thanks!
I would omit the ginger and maybe add a little extra lemon juice if I felt like the flavor needed a little boost.
I hope these aren’t address somewhere else but I have two quick questions:
1) does Pomona pectin go bad? I’ve had mine for a while but only used it once.
2) if I add raisins to this do I need to adjust anything about the processing time?
Thanks!!! I love your blog. I do admit I read it more than I actually put things in jars, but it is my go to resource.
Pomona’s Pectin does not go bad! Adding raisins should be an issue, as they are quite acidic.
Oh well. I was hoping to make it kind of like your peach chutney. Can I ask one more? It’s totally off this post – does lemon sugar/salt need to be refrigerated if you don’t dry the zest out before mixing it into the sugar/salt. Thanks again!
This looks like a fabulous recipe and I’d like to try it. I hope this isn’t a stupid question, but would it work to use red tomatoes instead of yellow? We have a ton of tomatoes coming in from the garden, but no yellow ones!
Yes.
Love the jars! where did you get them
Hi,
I would really like to make this jam but am unable to purchase Ponoma Pectin. Would it be safe to substitute with Bernardin Pectin? If so, do I replace the Calcium water with regular water?
Thanks in advance!
Enjoy the day!
This is a low sugar recipe that will not work with other styles of pectin. So sorry!