What do you do when life gives you papayas? More papayas than you can just eat? I made some jam! My husband and I love papaya, but our daughter will not even come near one. She will tolerate cooked unripe papaya but ripe papaya is just not her thing.
One of the many advantages of living in a sub-tropical climate is that papayas grow here almost throughout the year. The other day, I had just brought home a couple of papayas from the market when my friendly neighbourhood vegetable selling lady decided to knock on our door. It turned out that she had a basket full of papayas to sell.
She told me a long story about how she knew we loved papaya and she had especially brought some just so we could buy them off her. I tried to explain to her that we already had two, that there were just three of us in the house, and there was only so much papaya we could eat at any given time!
The outcome of all this conversation, partially in Konkani (which I understand but do not speak too well) and partially in Hindi and sign language was that I was left holding one more very big papaya!
Now I had 3 papayas of varying sizes, and it seemed like they were all competing for first place in the “Who gets ripe first and fastest?” competition!!! So we ate one papaya and the other two got bottled as jam.
I didn’t use any particular recipe and really just winged it as I went. These are the proportions I used, but feel free to adjust the sugar (and everything else to your taste) depending on how sweet your papaya is. The “spicy” (warmth actually) in this jam comes from the addition of garam masala.
Spiced Papaya Jam (GF, V)
Ingredients
- 5 cups papaya purxe9e
- 2 cups brown sugar demerara or
- 1/4 cup orange juice
- 1/4 cup mango juice
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tsps red chilli flakes
- 1 tbsp agar flakes
- 1 tsp garam masala powder
Instructions
- To make papaya purxe9e, peel the papaya (s), remove the seed and the "thready" central part and chop them up. Then liquidize/ blend the chopped papaya with the orange and mango juices.
- In a deep and heavy bottomed pan, put the papaya purxe9e, the sugar, salt and chili flakes and bring to a boil. Now turn down the heat, and let the papaya mixture thicken while stirring occasionally making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.
- In the meanwhile soak the agar flakes in about 2 tbsp of water. Once the jam has thickened quite a bit, add the soaked agar flakes (with the water) and the garam masala.
- Mix well and allow the jam to thicken a little further (another 10 minutes on the stove. Cool completely and bottle in sterilized jars.
- This recipe gave me 2 small jars of papaya jam.
- Updated (16th October, 2009) :
- The comments at this post made me realise I have missed out on a couple of things. I added the agar flakes to the jam to thicken the jam a little. You could omit that if you choose, or add pectin as is done with a lot of jams.
- The chilli flakes and the garam masala do not make this jam "spicy" or "hot". In the quantity used, they just balance out the sweetness and lend a warmth and flavour to the jam with a faint "spicy" note.
I'm Aparna and My Diverse Kitchen is my ovo-lacto vegetarian food blog where you'll find recipes, food stories & photography. I've been blogging since 2007 and believe the kitchen, and the dining table (by extension) is really the heart of a home. 
Wonderful recipe I am a big fan of papaya so i know this would taste lovely.
Adding chilli flakes is good idea. Pappaya jam tastes so good that pappaya haters are sure to like it.
ooh…I never had papaya jam before. This sounds delicious. 🙂
Mom used to make papaya jam with the ripe ones, but then without the spices, love the idea of adding spices to them.I would love to have this with my toast in the morning.
I’ve tried making jam out of papaya,the sweet version using only papaya and sugar.The spiced jam sounds like a great idea..:).Love the jam bottle..;),the pics are finger-licking good..:)
Love this spiced version of jam….sounds spicy and tickling to my taste buds….
Nice! I love papaya, too but have never thought about making jam with it, especially spiced jam. Sounds delicious!
Adding Chilli flakes to Jam sounds very innovative n interesting. Will surely try it….
I never like ripe papaya either, now I tolerate them 🙂 The Jam sure looks like a version that we would loveHappy Diwali
Thanks so much for the recipe. I’ve never had papaya jam before. yum
Oorugai jam???? Love the colour and wondering how delectable it can taste. The picture by itself is grand and tempting to try.
It is hard to get a good papaya in Canada, I guess they don’t travel well. Great idea to make jam out of them!
I can understand not being able to “no” to the lady selling papayas … I would have done the exact same thing! But the jam looks amazing, so it all turned out ok 🙂 Btw, what are agar flakes? Is it a substitute for cornstarch?
You know, this is what my Mum used to do when we had too many papayas and that was quite often! I don’t think I will touch papaya jam again – got tired eating them as a kid:), but yours does look very good!
Never had spiced jam,wonderful recipe…
Wow.. this is creative.. I have never thought of something like this before.. absolutely unpredictable taste.. will try it out soon.
I love papayas!! Lovely idea to make jam…wish I could get good ones here.. i miss madras!!!!
Pawpaw (Papaya) is one of the things I miss about Nigeria – we would have it fresh, with rice as a side. In cereal, and on its own with a squeeze of lime juice. Heavenly, especially when you got the sweet varieties. Lovely recipe
I thought those were pears. :(We had a papaya tree in our backyard when we were young and would n’t know what to do with surplus papayas. I remember my mother used to prepare the jam , the sweeter version ofcourse.Now your spicier version is really interesting. Never had a hot jam.Happy Diwali to your family.
Love the sound of papaya jam. Gotta try it soon.
The spicy version of the jam is very interesting.And I did not even know you could make jam out of Papayas.Happy Diwali!
I eat all fruits except papaya 7 we had trees in our home in india, where the fruits never stopped coming. The jam sounds way better than the fresh ones.
Papaya Jam? A very interesting indeed. Should try some time. How does it taste Aparna?
My mouth is watering. So glad to have found your blog!
Mouthwatering Click. I share a love hate relation with papaya and it is last in my list of fruits.Jam sounds great and wonderful.Spiced jam is way better than normal sugar version.Why agar ? is it just for setting? Can we omit it?
Thanks for all your comments.Lata, its not a oorugai (pickle) but a jam. The chilli flakes and garam masala just give the jam a nice flavour but the jam remains sweet.Muneeba, Agar is a vegetarian substitute for gelatin, not constarch.Agar is good as a thickening agent.Asha, I understand your missing Madars (Chennai now!). :)KB, I remember. :)I spent sopme part of my life in Nigeria.Suma, they are pears! :)Just used them in the pic for a colour contrast, but I guess they’re misleading.Sonu, the jam is sweet but the chilli flakes and garam masala balnce the sweetness and give a nice flavour.Thank you. Hope you enjoy my cooking. :)Sweatha,I used the agar to help it set some more. You could omit it if you feel its not necessary. Or use pectin instead.
Looks great!! I want to try making papaya butter… I’m not a big fan of papaya unless it is sweet. I recently made Raw Mango Butter… check it out… thought you might be interested :o)
never had this idea before making papaya jam, I love them not my family, I use them in so many ways to make them eat, this is something new, must try this
Thanks Marillyn. Looked it up, most interesting. Have to wait till mago season here.
I have become tolerant of papayas only now. So I can totally empathize with your daughter. I love your idea of chili flakes in the papaya jam! Did you know you can ripen papayas evenly if you keep them wrapped in a newspaper. Just leave them on your kitchen counter for a day and you will taste the difference.