How to make chilli jam

Ingredients:

600g cut up chilllies or capsicums (peppers), any kind. 

1 cup vinegar 

5 cups sugar (helps preserve as bugs don't like all the sugar)
1/2 pouch Hansells Jam Setting Mix (from supermarket (pectin for thickening, made from apples). Method:

Cut up and core 600g of chillies (if I have picked a bit more I just add a bit more vinegar and sugar and setting stuff proportionally) no worries. Wear gloves or will have painful fingers.

The heat of your jam will be from this choice here.   Mild - 4 med sized capsicum, 4-5 capsicum.  Med - mostly Thai chillies.  Moderate and divine - add a Habanero with inside white interior scraped away (tamed that is where heat us stored). etc!

Blend with 1 cup vinegar - add half chillies and all vinegar, blend, than add the other half.

Pour into large pot with 5 cups sugar in it. Stir. DON'T ADD PECTIN YET.

Boil 10 min, turn up to max then turn down to gentle boil. Put clean jars into oven at 160 degrees C to kill bugs. I wipe sides with wet scraper to avoid possible crystallisation with unmixed sugar falling in at wrong time. 

Then add pectin made into paste just before adding (or gets thick) stir well and count to 60. Take off heat.

At this point you pour into hot sterile bottles, to 1 cm from top. Pour slowly as hot bottles will fizz the stuff up. USE A GLASS MEASURING CUP or something small to pour into jar. I still have a scar where sticky jam danged onto my arm. You can't get sticky boiling stuff off in time.

Pour then cap using a tea towel or something, stick on windowsill or wherever. You will hear a POP which is the oxygen leaving the bottle as it vacuum seals. When it cools label with pride.

How to make hot chilli pepper jelly (and preserving info)

This is the best thing I ever made from my garden produce.

So simple to make, but the finest.  You simply blender hot chillis, capsicums (peppers in North American) and vinegar.  I found the recipe here at this great publication about chilli peppers and capsicums, "Peppers: Safe Methods to Store, Preserve, and Enjoy"    (Content reviewed and revised by LINDA J. HARRIS, Food Safety and Applied Microbiology, Specialist, Department of Food Science and Technology, University of California, Davis.)  Their recipes were adapted from “So Easy to Preserve,” 2nd Edition, Cooperative Extension Service, University of Georgia.

This is because I couldn't just try a recipe blindly.  I was learning to live off the land, and preserve my garden produce - possibly for a long time, so I had to learn how to do it safely (and yummily!).

My favourite recipes in this publication was the "Pepper Jelly" (p.11), followed by "Hot Chilli Salsa" (p.8).  But one of the reasons it tasted so amazing was the produce - fresh from my own garden, and using a variety of amazing heirloom and interesting tomatoes ranging from jam tomatoes, various coloured tomatoes, to different shapes of varieties.

Here is the recipe for Hot Chilli Pepper Jelly (sometimes called Red Pepper Jelly) but omitting a few drops of food colouring as I like completely natural foods.  For the info I needed on preserving in general, go to the full scientific paper on preserving peppers, here.  It is so easy!  Just blender, and bottle.  An amazing food with cheese, or on meats.

Hot Chilli Pepper Jelly

Makes 5 half-pint (250-ml) jars.

4 or 5 jalapeño or other hot peppers cored and chopped

4 medium green or red bell peppers cored and chopped

1 cup white vinegar (5%) or 250 ml

5 cups sugar or 1.25 L

1 pouch liquid pectin

1. Put half the peppers and half the vinegar into a blender; cover and process until

peppers are liquefied. Repeat with remaining peppers and vinegar. 

2. Combine the pepper and vinegar mixture with the sugar in a large saucepan and

boil slowly for 10 minutes. Remove from heat.

3. Add liquid pectin and boil hard for 1 minute. 

4. Skim foam off the top of the jelly and pour jelly immediately into canning jars, leaving 1⁄4 inch (0.5 cm) of headspace.

5. Wipe jar rims with a clean, damp cloth and secure lids and ring bands.

6. Process the jars of jelly in a boiling water bath as prescribed in Table 7.

Table 7. Recommended Processing Time for Pepper Jelly in a Water Bath Canner

Processing Time at Various Altitudes

For jar size of half-pint or pint: 

Altitude 0–1,000 ft  is 5 min processing time

Altitude 1,001–6,000 ft is 10 min processing time

Altitude above 6,000 ft is 15 min processing time