Tomato Jam

Now that it is the height of tomato season here it's time to start preserving some of our bounty. Since my youngest son is a professional chef, we get the inside track on many restaurants around the country including one of the very best, Niche, in St. Louis where chef Gerard Craft does his thing. One of their starters that we enjoyed on a visit was tomato jam with Spanish white sardines.

Here is my take on that jam since I couldn't talk Gerard into sharing the recipe:

In a large saucepan cook 1 cup of mixed chopped shallots and white onion in some olive oil until soft. Add one fresh garlic clove, or more to taste, and saute briefly until you can smell the garlic.  Add 3.5 pounds of fresh tomatoes coarsely chopped, the zest of one lemon, the juice of that lemon, one tablespoon fresh ginger either finely chopped or grated with a microplane, one tablespoon of candied ginger chopped, six tablespoons of red wine vinegar, two tablespoons of sugar  (or more to your taste up to 1 cup) and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes. Bring to the boil and then turn way down and simmer while stirring occasionally for about 40 minutes or until the mixture is thicker and nearly dry.

You can put this in sterile jam jars as usual or if you are going to use it more quickly, just put in a container with a lid and refrigerate until used. This is good with those white Spanish sardines or canned sardines, but it is also good with corned beef hash or on sandwiches.