It was our first trip to the Eumundi markets, and the children and I were trailing our way through the stalls checking our the wares. I was most interested in food products, and found a little stall selling all sorts of delicious looking condiments.
'Pork Jam' caught my eye. A sweet relish/jam type of condiment to accompany pork dishes. Good thing for us, as we'd recently butchered a 200kg+ sow and so had a freezer full of pork at home! And Rick loves sauces/condiments.
So we bought a jar to take home to Rick. Now, it was delicious and all the family loved it. But normally $13.50 for such a little jar of something isn't justified in our large family. So the most economical step to take in order for us to continue to enjoy this jam, was to try an make it ourselves.
We searched the internet, but kept coming up with either 'bacon jam' recipes, which actually contain bacon, or with links to buy the exact same product we already had.
Plan B. Read the ingredient list on the label and try and replicate it, with a few tweaks.
The main ingredients were pineapple and apple. Easy. We found some pineapple jam recipes to loosely follow and went from there. Here's what we created, and it tastes very much like the pork jam we bought, but with more 'zing'.
Pineapple Jam for Pork
1 Pineapple, peeled/skinned and finely chopped
3 large apples, skinned, cored and finely chopped
2 1/2 Tbsp fresh ginger, finely grated
1 1/2 c filtered water
1 c lemon juice
2 tsp allspice, ground
1 Tbsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cardamom, ground
2 c sugar
1 sachet pectin (I used Mad Millie pectin, though noticed after buying it that ingredient #1 in it is sugar!)
Directions: Place the first 9 ingredients in a large pot and bring to the boil.
Add sugar and pectin and keep at a rolling boil until desired consistency is reached.
Pour into sterilized jars and store in the pantry until opened...then it'll need the fridge :-)
Don't eat/have pork? You can use this jam on toast etc, as a spiced jam.