Pam-the-jam has a recipe for chilli jam which, delicious though it may be, is a little OTT on the sweet and sticky stakes. Ottolenghi did a recipe in the Guardian which contained most of the chilli jam ingredients plus some spices and tinned tomatoes. Good it was, but by adding some home smoked tomatoes it went stratospheric. I confess to not having an exact recipe - as yet - so you might have to improvise.

sterilise your jars and lids by first washing thoroughly in soapy water then placing in a 120°C oven for 12-15 minutes

Ingredients - makes about 6-8 jars plenty of sawdust/wood shavings for smoking 500g cherry tomatoes 250g red peppers, finely diced 250g red chillies, seeds removed & finely diced 200ml Sandford Orchard cider vinegar 300g Traidcraft sugar 1 tbsp salt 1 tbsp cumin seeds 1 tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped 4 cloves garlic, crushed & finely chopped 1 tsp mustard powder 6 tins tomoatoes 6-8 sterilised jars

Method

1 Smoking the tomatoes is surprisingly simple - a veg steamer with a couple of inches of clean sawdust and shavings, placed on a BBQ or camping stove, will start smoking. Put 500g of cherry tomatoes in the top, put on the lid, and leave until burnt out. Don’t puncture the tomatoes or they will drip onto the shavings. Alternatively, fashion something out of a biscuit tin.

2 To make about six jars, place diced peppers and chillies in a saucepan and simmer in cider vinegar for 10 minutes. Add the sugar, salt, cumin seeds, diced ginger and garlic, mustard powder, the smoked cherry tomatoes and all six tins of tomatoes. Gently boil until it has reduced by about 25%, whizz up and if it is still too thin continue to gently simmer. Make sure it is gentle or it will catch and don’t forget that it will thicken as it cools.

3 Ladle the ketchup whilst hot into sterilised jars and tightly lid them immediately. This is definitely not an exact recipe so feel free to improvise. At worst it will be an improvement on tomato ketchup and the dreaded, sweet chilli sauce. The end product is high on vinegar and sugar but I wouldn’t vouch for it keeping indefinitely out of the fridge, even if hot filled into sterilised jars, but if you go through ketchup and sweet chilli sauce at anything approaching Chez Watson rates that won’t be an issue.