“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.”
Most people don’t think about using mashed tomatoes as the primary ingredient in a spreadable jam. And, even more people don’t know that a tomato is not a vegetable; it is a fruit! Recently I stumbled across both these facts while studying recipes for my pellet grill smoker. I already knew about the fruit vs veggie but I wasn’t aware you could turn tomatoes into a jam. Well, you can and I’ve made several batches and I am hooked on it.
Once I started looking online for tomato jam recipes, I discovered there were plenty but only a handful of them were “smoked” or “smoky” and even those only used spices to produce a smoked taste. This recipe takes that concept a step further because the tomatoes are actually wood smoked before they are diced and mashed to eventually become jam. The results are uniquely delicious! In addition to enjoying this jam on your morning breakfast toast or biscuit, it goes great on grilled cheese sandwiches, scrambled eggs, and even as an appetizer when served over a brick of cream cheese. I hope you’ll give it a try and I think you’ll like it.
A few notes: This recipe should produce six half pint jars depending on boiling reduction. 4 lbs of tomatoes peeled, smoked & diced makes 6 cups. The recipe for the smoked tomatoes is Smoked Tomato Sauce and it is located HERE. As with any canning recipe, it is important to follow the standard safety rules of canning; they can be found at Canning 101 on the website, FoodInJars.com.
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Prepare a canning pot and either six half pint jars or four 12-oz. jars. (Obviously this photo is not a traditional canning pot. This is a new "steamer canner" that I am trying out!)
Unless you did so earlier and refrigerated the sauce, follow my earlier recipe, Smoked Tomato Sauce, in order to smoke the tomatoes which will provide ingredient #1.
Place the first six ingredients into a low, wide, non-reactive pot and stir to combine. Allow the contents to set for thirty minutes (so the sugars will completely dissolve) and then stir again.
Now place the pot, uncovered, on the stove over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring regularly for 15 minutes, add the six remaining ingredients. Continue to cook (about 20-25 minutes) until the total volume in the pot has reduced by at least one-third and the jam mixture looks quite thick.
Carefully funnel the hot jam mixture into the prepared warm jars leaving ¼ to ½ inch headspace.
Wipe the jar rims with a wet paper towel, apply the warm lids and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.
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