tomatoes | Iaia's kitchen

Our tomato plants are giving us a bumper crop this year – the gorgeous plummy fruit is coming thick and fast. What better way to conserve it than in this luscious, sweet jam. Iaia makes pots every year, but I have pipped her at the post with a small batch for you!
A kilo and a half of toms made almost 5 jam jars full of ruby red yumminess. The cinnamon and lemon are optional. Iaia leaves her cinnamon in and pots shards of it up with the jam, but I hate finding little barky bits on my toast or between my teeth, so I pull it out at the last minute. The lemon gives you a lovely tangy surprise from time to time, and I really recommend including it!

What you need:
At least a couple of kilos of plum tomatoes
A kilo or so of sugar
Zest of one lemon
A cinnamon stick

What you do:
Scald and peel all of the tomatoes. Weigh the lot and put them into a large, heavy-based, non-reactive pan. Run a knife through them to break them up a bit before weighing your sugar and adding it to the tomatoes. Traditionally the recipe calls for equal weights of tomato and sugar, but both Iaia and I find that far too sweet. For this batch, I used a kilo of sugar for 1600g of tomatoes, and the jam set well and is sufficiently sweet without cloying.
The sugar will immediately start to draw the liquid out of the tomatoes, so you can turn on the heat and stir things gently without fear of burning. While the tomatoes are heating and the sugar is melting, use a potato peeler to zest the lemon and cut the strips into smallish pieces. Add to the pan along with the cinnamon stick and bring everything to a jolly boil. I allowed this lot to boil hard until it was reduced by about half, then poured it into sterilised jars.

Serve with: breakfast toast and a cuppa or as part of one of our favourite summer canapés: a slice of tangy goat’s cheese with a dollop of jam and an anchovy sat on top.

Summer gluts of tomato mean two things around here – cold Andalusian gazpacho and pots of thick tomato jam. Today I am making the first of these for our supper. This is very much a Iaia version rather than a faithful reproduction of the traditional soup – I would love to hear your own recipes, especially if you are reading from down south!
We like to drink our gazpacho from glasses and so add some ice-cold water to get the consistency just right. If, on the other hand, you eat yours from a bowl, it’s usual to add a handful of finely chopped pepper, onion, tomato and/or croutons. The recipe here gives you about a litre of soup.

What you need:
1½ kg ripe plum tomatoes
a chunk of cucumber
a small green or red pepper
half an onion
a clove or two of garlic
olive oil
your favourite vinegar
a pinch of salt
water (optional)

What you do:
Peel the tomatoes using whichever method you prefer – I use a sharp knife and do away with the whole boiling water palaver. Chop into chunks along with all the other ingredients and toss into a blender. (Note: we also peel the cucumber to save sensitive tummies from indigestion).
Once all the veg is in the blender, pour in a happy glug of olive oil, a generous splash of vinegar and a perfect pinch of salt (all of which you can tweak to taste as you blend), and press the “on” button. Add water if it seems too thick, more salt if it seems too bland and more oil or vinegar if you think you need either – this is not rocket science.
Refrigerate until ready to serve. Easy? Delicious!

Serve with: croutons, bits of chopped ingredients, and a summer table full of nibbles…

Iaia's kitchen

Traditional recipes from my Valencia mother-in-law

Tag Archives: tomatoes

Tomato jam

Gazpacho andaluz