I use Sarah Raven’s garden cookbook all year, it has some great seasonal recipes in it, along with her chilli jam, which i make every few months, I’m giving this a go this year as it sounds interesting…this looks like a great recipe for getting rid of tomatoes, which I am currently doing as I have filled what little space I had left in the freezer with tomato sauces for the winter, I’ve nearly run out of jars, this recipe made just three jars, not a great return but lets see how it tastes, it’s sounds slightly wrong, it smelt a bit too chinesey, it didn’t taste spectacular but hopefully will improve with a bit of festering!!! eat it with bread and cheese or anything porky
1.5kg tomatoes (I used quatro, money maker and roma)
2 star anise
3 cardamom pods
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon juniper berries
3 cloves
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 vanilla pod
1 orange
1 lemon
Salt
300g white sugar
Put a small saucer into the fridge to cool. Halve the tomatoes and scrape out the seeds. Roughly chop the halves into pieces and put into a large heavy-based pan.
Cook the spices in a small frying pan over a moderate heat until they begin to pop and smoke.
Allow them to cool and then grind them quite finely using a pestle and mortar or in an electric grinder.
Split the vanilla pod and add the whole pod to the pan with the spices. Grate the zest from the orange and lemon, and squeeze the juice. Add these, together with the salt and sugar, to the rest of the ingredients in the pan and heat slowly until the sugar has dissolved completely.
Simmer for at least 30 minutes to thicken and reduce, stirring regularly
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