Throughout the summer, my chilli plant – which I accidentally thought was a paprika plant when I bought it, but realized I was wrong when the fruits started to grow – enjoyed its time outside on my terrace. I was very happy with the first full batch it grew and accepted that this could be all I get from this plant this season, but when it started to grow new plants, I was over the moon.

In late October I harvested the last chillies. Now it’s the time to either preserve them or use them in a recipe. I hadn’t made a chilli jam before, so I decided to divide the harvest into two: use half of the chillies for a sweet chilli jam and the other half for a cucumber-chilli salad (which is still on my to-do list).

You can find different variations of this jam online. However, I decided to follow this recipe I found in Estonian here for its simple ingredients list and easy steps.

Before delving into the recipe, I would like to mention that I used 50g less sugar than what’s stated in the recipe. Surprisingly, the jam turned out quite sweet to our taste. In the future, I plan to reduce the sugar amount even further and add more chillis for extra spiciness. Now, let’s move on to the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 200 g red chillies
• 500 g sugar (or less as I preferred)
• 800 g red paprikas
• 1 dl (or 0.42 cups) red wine
• 1 teaspoon of salt

Method:

1. Remove seeds from chillies and paprikas, and chop the fruits finely.
2. Mix the chopped chillies and paprikas with sugar, red wine and salt.
3. Heat the mixture over low heat with the lid on for an hour.
4. Then blend the mixture until it’s smooth.
5. Heat the blended mixture for another half an hour without the lid on.
6. Pour the jam into sterilised pots.

See it in video here:

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