Stonewall Kitchen Roasted Garlic and Onion Jam is a $8 jar of culinary gold. From the makers of a luxury foods line, available at your local gourmet market, one jar lasts for eons and brings sweet pungency to almost anything you can name.
My favorite cheat with this is using it to make an extraordinarily good vinaigrette, one that will basically demolish all salad resistance among the vegetable-challenged. Drop a teaspoon of this lovely goo into a mixing bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Leave to sit for a few minutes, then mush the jam with a fork until it’s nicely broken up in the vinegar. Add about 2 tablespoons of vinegar for each person you’re serving and whisk together. Slowly add an equal amount of extra virgin olive oil while whisking to emulsify. Add salt and pepper to taste and toss with salad leaves – or use as a dip for crudités. This is a particularly useful trick when you want a vinaigrette but don’t have any particularly good balsamic or olive oil – the savory jam steps even a semi-crappy fourth press oil to something quite tasty.
This jam is also great for a quick and oddly elegant hors d'œuvres; swipe water crackers with a smear of cream cheese, then dab on around a half-teaspoon of the onion jam.
I find this really tasty and appropriate with a brandy and soda cocktail – one jigger of brandy over ice in an old-fashioned glass and top with soda water.
This jam is also amazing in pretty much any sandwich you can name. I like it particularly with turkey, taleggio cheese and a few leaves of arugula, but it would be equally lyrical on a meatloaf sandwich.
Because it’s got lots of sugar, you want to use caution if you’re cooking with it or using it as a glaze on chicken for example; it will burn.
*Cheats are defined as foodstuffs that inject instantaneous flavor and style into a number of different recipes.
