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Roast garlic & onion jam

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Roast garlic & onion jam

Overview
I bought a jar of Stonewall Kitchen’s Roasted Garlic Onion Jam from USA foods in Moorabbin (Melbourne, Australia). The rule I follow is to make sure that I always buy something that looks interesting but I haven’t tried before. This was the winner last time – and boy, was it a winner! Serve with steak, lamb, chicken, on sandwiches, in toasties, cheese boards, with dips… you name it! It is a little loose without the pectin, but sets nicely when in the fridge.

I started with the ingredients on the jar, compared to a few similar products in my stash and poked a round online a little. Took lots of notes and came up with a plan. Did a trial with far more roast garlic than I needed (that’s okay, I froze a lot of it!) and loved the results. Then we recarpeted the house, moved almost everything we moved around the house 17 times… I thought I’d already typed it up but hadn’t. I realised over a month later, couldn’t find the piece of paper with the recipe and had to start over. There’s something to be said for using modern technology for note taking!

EDIT: I found the notes! Only 16 hours after re-doing everything. I think the new version is better, but will tweak a little next time, ’cause that’s how I roll.

This makes just under 2 litres of jam, about 1.5kg.

Time
Roasting the garlic takes less than an hour; the jam comes together quickly once the onions are caramelised. Get them going while the garlic is roasting if you like.

Ingredients – I’m still playing around with this (parentheses indicate what I will try next time)
½ cup compacted roast garlic (roughly chopped – you still want some chunks) (try ¾ cup)
60-70g butter
3 large brown onions, cut in half, then quarters and sliced (try 5)
2 cups white sugar (try 1)
2 cups brown sugar (try 1½)
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
¾ cup apple cider vinegar (make your own!)
½ cup lemon juice – about 2 lemons (save the rind – I zest it and dry it)
1 ts umami salt
¾ ts white pepper
1½ ts ground mustard powder (try 2)
½ ts ground ginger
¼ ts ground cloves
(try adding ¼ ts citric acid – it was in the first version)
(try adding ½ ts ground cinnamon)
(add 8g pectin next time… this may be too much)

Equipment
Nothing special, but the you-beaut jam makers look amazing! Sterilise your jars – I use the steam oven set to 100% steam and 180° C.

Method
Preheat oven to 200° C if you need to roast some garlic.
Pop a tiny bowl in the freezer for testing the jam.

1 – If needed, roast the garlic by cutting the ends off the cloves/bulbs, spray with olive oil and roast for 45 minutes or until nutty and caramelised. Most people seem to cover them with foil (not touching the exposed garlic) but I generally don’t.

2 – Melt the butter in a saucepan.

3 – Add the onions. Cook, stirring every 10 minutes or so until well caramelised.

4 – Add the sugars, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper, mustard, ginger and cloves. Cook over a low heat for 5 minutes.

5 – Test the jam by putting a spoon on the frozen plate. Tilt the plate – if the jam runs very slowly, it’s ready. If not, cook for another 5 minutes and test again. Or, pop some onto a cold plate, wait 30 seconds and drag your finger through – if ready it will wrinkle up.

6 – If needed, add a fruit pectin – 1-1½% of the total weight of the jam is the official party line – the 8g suggested above is about ½% (you need to know what the saucepan weighs). Cook for another 5 minutes before testing again.

7 – Funnel into sterile jars for storage.

Enjoy!!

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