Fig, Apricot or other Jam recipes?

[DonnaGail]

In 2018 I started ordering Hello Fresh means. These were not for Whole30 but for convenience. They had a sauce recipe to drizzle over pork, beef etc that was excellent, almost made the meal gourmet looking. I am trying to recreate that recipe to include no added sugar. It consists of: shallots, balsamic vinegar, chicken stock concentrate and the fruit jam. After going to 6 grocery stores in town, I finally found the compliant concentrate in tubes from 'Organic Imagine' from a small local natural food store and no, couldnt find it at Trader Joe's. So now I have to figure out the jam part. I picked up a large bag of dried figs from Costco, so I need someone to tell me how I can use dried fruit in my recipe. 

[SugarcubeOD]

3 hours ago, DonnaGail said:

In 2018 I started ordering Hello Fresh means. These were not for Whole30 but for convenience. They had a sauce recipe to drizzle over pork, beef etc that was excellent, almost made the meal gourmet looking. I am trying to recreate that recipe to include no added sugar. It consists of: shallots, balsamic vinegar, chicken stock concentrate and the fruit jam. After going to 6 grocery stores in town, I finally found the compliant concentrate in tubes from 'Organic Imagine' from a small local natural food store and no, couldnt find it at Trader Joe's. So now I have to figure out the jam part. I picked up a large bag of dried figs from Costco, so I need someone to tell me how I can use dried fruit in my recipe. 

Some people might have some tips but you might get more responses and better help if you post specific cooking questions on a cooking website.  I think if you tell them that you want to make a fig jam with no sugar they'd probably be able to give you hints and tips.  You can definitely post here but often specific cooking questions don't get a lot of responses.

[kirbz]

I know this isn't really what you were looking for, but I LOVE Mel Joulwan and found two recipes from her that use figs: 

• Moroccan Steak Salad with Fig and Pistachio Dressing: https://meljoulwan.com/2019/02/13/moroccan-steak-salad-fig-pistachio-dressing/ 
• Moroccan Sirloin with Fig-Pistachio Butter: https://meljoulwan.com/2013/01/27/sous-vide-moroccan-sirloin-w-fig-pistachio-butter/ 

[ShannonM816]

Asking in a cooking website is a good suggestion. They'd probably have suggestions, especially if you want to make larger batches of it to keep on hand.

I don't know how comfortable you are winging things in the kitchen, but I would probably just dice the figs and saute them in some coconut oil. You could maybe add some spices -- cinnamon, maybe some ginger. When they're nice and soft, smush them up, strain if you think you need to for seeds, and then use that for your jam. If your figs don't seem very sweet, you could add a splash of apple juice and let it reduce down as the figs cook.

 

[Amura]

You can make jam without sugar, in smaller amounts.

Sugar is a preservative, that's why it's added to jam in such a large amount (usually as much sugar as fruit).
If you do not mean to preserve it, you don't really need the sugar.

How-to?
Well, you would usually cook your fruit with a little bit of water on a low setting until soft. You may blend it if you'd like the consistency better.
I've never used dried figs, you may need to re-hydrate them beforehand or add more water to the pot while cooking.

Of course it would not be as sweet as your usual sugary jam.
You can add a bit of cinnamon, it's a sweet spice, if you like it.
But if you are into cooking, I would suggest that you confit your shallots - they will bring sweetness to your dish.

[DonnaGail]

On 9/20/2019 at 10:24 AM, SugarcubeOD said:

Some people might have some tips but you might get more responses and better help if you post specific cooking questions on a cooking website.  I think if you tell them that you want to make a fig jam with no sugar they'd probably be able to give you hints and tips.  You can definitely post here but often specific cooking questions don't get a lot of responses.

Great idea!

[DonnaGail]

On 9/22/2019 at 2:25 AM, Amura said:

You can make jam without sugar, in smaller amounts.

Sugar is a preservative, that's why it's added to jam in such a large amount (usually as much sugar as fruit).
If you do not mean to preserve it, you don't really need the sugar.

How-to?
Well, you would usually cook your fruit with a little bit of water on a low setting until soft. You may blend it if you'd like the consistency better.
I've never used dried figs, you may need to re-hydrate them beforehand or add more water to the pot while cooking.

Of course it would not be as sweet as your usual sugary jam.
You can add a bit of cinnamon, it's a sweet spice, if you like it.
But if you are into cooking, I would suggest that you confit your shallots - they will bring sweetness to your dish.

Sounds great! Thxs!

[Jihanna]

I forget which thread it was in, but somewhere here on the forums there had been a question about using jams during Whole30 for certain cooking reasons, and they'd shared a peach jam from Amazon which was sweetened only with fruit juice. I checked that company's offerings, and they have a Royal Fig Jam that is also only sweetened by fruit juice (grape and date), which might work for you in this if you want something you can buy rather than something you can make.