Recipe for the home cook follows

Yields 1.5 cups

1 tbsp oil
½ lb shal­lots (5−7 shal­lots depend­ing on size)
½ tbsp salt
1 cup red wine
½ cup white sug­ar
½ cup brown sug­ar

Thin­ly slice the shal­lots. Add oil to your pan and place over low heat. Sauté shal­lots with salt until they’re translu­cent (about 15 min­utes).

Add wine, then your sug­ars and stir to com­bine. This is where the time comes in: you’ll need to reduce it until it begins to thick­en. Over low heat, this can take up to an hour so be patient.

Once reduced, chill overnight. We serve ours along­side cheese and char­cu­terie, but you can use it end­less­ly in your kitchen (burg­ers, grilled cheese sand­wich­es and the like would all ben­e­fit from a dol­lop).

You can use the jam imme­di­ate­ly, but the fla­vors and tex­ture will con­tin­ue to improve with an overnight chill in the fridge. It will keep up to a month in a sealed con­tain­er in the fridge.

A note from the Chef

For addi­tion­al fla­vors, fold in pars­ley, tar­ragon or cit­rus zest after it has cooled. Spices would also be wel­come: the French are par­tial to cloves and bay lau­rel togeth­er; Ital­ians like nut­meg with bay lau­rel. Fen­nel, cumin, star anise, gin­ger, touch of chili would also work. In cul­tures where spices are a part of the cui­sine, you almost nev­er see spices used alone — part­ner them with oth­ers to build your fla­vor palate!