Sweet, smoky, and beautiful. And it packs a seriously spicy kick that won’t make you sweat, but will definitely raise your eyebrows. Remember when the Cubs won the World Series? Imagine that excitement as a taste sensation, and you’ve just imagined this spicy chile pepper bacon jam. Use this jam…

• as a sandwich spread
• as a condiment for chicken salad (fantastic)
• on a burger
• as an egg roll dip
• on a cheese board!
• on biscuits or cornbread
• whisked into a ranch dressing or vinaigrette
• as a glaze
• stirred into hot white rice (so good)
• in a meatball mix
• on baked brie

…or in countless other ways. One of my favorite ways is to halve and pit an avocado, and fill the cavity with a heaping amount of jam. Then I eat the avocado right out of the skin, with a spoon. Deliriously delicious.

Ingredients for 2 cups of jam:

2-3 large, red bell peppers (or 3-4 medium-sized), divided
1/2 lb. bacon, diced
1 ancho chile, split open, stem and seeds removed
2 orange or red habanero chile peppers, stems and seeds removed
1 Tbs + 1½ tsp Sure-Jell less- or no-sugar-needed
2 Tbs + 1½ cup sugar, DIVIDED
1/4 cup + 3 Tbs white vinegar
1 Tbs lemon juice
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp (heaping) coarse salt (optional)

How to do it:

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment. Cut 2 (or 3, if they’re medium) of the peppers in half, remove the seeds, stems, and ribs. Weigh them. If they come to or slightly exceed 8 oz. fine; if they don’t, prep and add more of the peppers until they do. Place them cut-side-down on the parchment. Slide them into the oven and roast until they’ve blistered and blackened, about 30 minutes, rotating the pan half-way through. Transfer to a bowl with a tight-fitting lid and allow to cool to the point that they’re easy to handle. Reserve any juice that may have seeped from them. Peel away and discard the skins. Chop fine and set aside.
2. Place the bacon in an unheated skillet, turn the flame to medium-high (setting 5 out of 9), and fry the bacon, stirring occasionally at first and constantly in the final 3 minutes, until crispy, 12 minutes total. Use a slotted spoon (or pour the bacon into a mesh sieve over a bowl) to transfer the bacon to a plate lined with paper towels. Set aside. Reserve the rendered fat.
3. Use a coffee grinder (or the like) to process the ancho chile to a powder. Set aside.
4. Slice the remaining red bell peppers into quarters; remove the stems and seeds. Measure out 8 oz.-worth and place it in a food processor (repurpose any remaining). Add the habaneros. Pulse until mixture is finely minced. Set aside. (You may need to do this in small batches, depending on the size of your processor.)
5. Whisk together pectin and 2 Tbs sugar in a small bowl. Set aside.
6. Mince the bacon and add it to a medium-sized saucepot.
7. To the bacon, add 1½ tsp of the reserved bacon fat, the roasted pepper plus its reserved juice, the ancho powder, bell pepper mixture, remaining 1½ cups sugar, vinegar, juice, paprika, (and salt). Bring to a full, vigorous boil over high heat (setting 6 of 9), which takes about 7 minutes. Continue the full boil, stirring occasionally, 5 more minutes. Gradually add pectin mixture, whisking constantly. Continue to whisk and boil the mixture until it thickens slightly, 45-90 seconds. Off heat; test it for doneness (see notes). Ladle into 2 one-cup glass jars. Place tight-fitting lids on the jars. Once cool, store the jam in the refrigerator.

Notes:

To test the jam for doneness, place a saucer or small plate in the freezer. When ready, remove it, add 1/2 teaspoon of jam, and return it to the freezer. After about one minute, the jam should feel cool and seem spreadable without being runny. If it’s not thick enough, contine cooking it for a few more minutes, and re-test. Once you’ve finished the jam and have completely refrigerated it, you can still adjust its texture. if it’s too thin, spoon it back into a pan and bring it to a full boil for a few minutes; re-refrigerate. If it’s too thick, spoon it back into a pan, add water (no less than two tablespoons, no more than a half-cup), heat it while stirring, just until it the water is fully incorporated and the mixture begins to boil, and re-refrigerate.

Recipe can be doubled easily. Cooking times will increase slightly.

My favorite way to dice bacon is with high-quality kitchen shears. I stack four slices, cut them in half along the length, and then snip them into small pieces over the pan.

The timing on the bacon frying will vary, but this is how you can expect it to go down: at first, the liquid that the bacon gives off has a high water content. It will boil like water. The bacon needs to be stirred only occasionally during this phase. After a while, there’ll be a short period during which a fond will start to develop, at which point you must begin to stir constantly. Don’t try too hard to scrape away the fond; normal-but-diligent stirring will eventually get rid of it. Once you’re past the fond stage, you’ll notice a marked change in the way the liquid boils. The bubbles will be larger and will begin to look sudsy. You’ve cooked the moisture out, and now you’re cooking with mainly fat. Continue to stir constantly. Eventually, the suds will become so thick that you can hardly see the bacon. It’s done or nearly so at this point. It should be dark and clearly crispy. Off heat. Remove the bacon immediately.

Substitute red jalapenos for the habanero. You can also substitute another dried chile for the ancho: guajillo or pasilla, for instance. The types of chiles that you use will have an effect on the jam’s spiciness, and may also modify its flavor, but I’ve tried them all, and loved them all equally.

Don’t bother cleaning out your coffee grinder before using it on the ancho. A little coffee in this jam would be perfectly fine, and a little ancho in your next pot of coffee will be kind of fun.

Pectin is new to me. I’ve only recently started making jams, and I haven’t made any that require pectin until now. As I suspected, you’ll find it near the Jell-O in the grocery store. I don’t know enough about using pectin to tell you why I used the “less sugar” type; I went with the advice I found on a website called Pick Your Own.

The backstory:

Usually, my recipes are modifications of other people’s recipes, and I always try to be clear about giving credit. This one though, even though I used an Epicurious process as its basic template, is completely my own concoction, and I just can’t believe how nicely it turned out. You’ll want to eat this by the spoonful.

I’m an academic in my day job, so definitions both fascinate and plague me. This Hot Chile Pepper Bacon Jam doesn’t fall perfectly into the “jam,” “jelly,” or “chutney” cubby holes, but has elements of all three. Although jams and jellies are typically made from fruit, they don’t have to be. This jam has a decidedly jelly-like texture, but because the solids aren’t strained out, I feel comfortable calling it a jam. However, it contains a significant amount of vinegar. That, and its sweet-and-sour nature seem to make it lean more toward chutney. But its texture is decidedly un-chutney-like. Chutneys don’t typically have the texture that pectin brings to this jam, and because the solids are minced down to nothing, it spreads exactly like a highly-jelled jam. On top of all of that, other similar bacon-centric condiments call themselves “jams,” and although if enough people say it, that does NOT make it true, you can’t just ignore what tons of people say.  

Chile Pepper Bacon Jam (Spicy)

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything.

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