Posted in Hints + Tips, Vegetarian
This is the first recipe I have tried from the River Cottage Preserves hand book I got for Christmas. I fancied making some marmalade in celebration of the end of citrus fruit season. There were two methods for making marmalade given in the book, I went for the whole fruit method (as opposed to the sliced fruit method!) which the book claims is easier and less time consuming, thus being the method for me! The recipe below makes about four of our random recycled jars full.
You need 500g Seville Oranges (about four), 30 ml lemon juice (half a lemon), and 1 kg granulated sugar. Scrub the oranges, put them in a large pan with 1.25 litres of water. Bring to the boil, and then cover and simmer for two hours. When they are soft, take the oranges out and measure how much water you have left, you need about 0.85 litres, so either add some more water, or keep boiling until you have the right amount.
Cut up the oranges into marmalade size strips (discarding pips, but reserving the juice). Put the cut up orange back into the water, and add the lemon juice and sugar. Bring to the boil and stir until the sugar is dissolved, and then boil rapidly until setting point is reached (more about this later). The book says this should take 10-15 minutes, but it took mine about an hour to get going! I think it’s because my casserole dish isn’t really big enough for making this volume of jam.
Leave to cool for ten minutes, stir and skim off the scum, and then poor into sterilised jars. I added a little whisky to two of the jars right at the end, which really brought out the orangy flavour.
The resulting marmalade is really lovely, far nicer than any shop bought one I’ve ever had. The orange flavour really comes through strongly. It was really simple in the end, although maybe slightly more time consuming than it should have been. I think all jam making requires a degree of confidence when you aren’t used to it, and we were unsure when the setting point had been reached (we don’t have a thermometer so used the test where you drop some jam on to a saucer and see if it crinkles), and it was hard to get the boiling started as the pan was so full. I think a proper preserving pan might have to go on my next birthday wish list.
Sounds really nice. Those crumpets look soo tasty. I keep trying to convince Jenny we need some for breakfast.
A few weeks ago we tried a HFW recipe for Spicy Lamb Curry, it involved making Medlar and Apple Chutney and Medlar jelly. I couldn’t track down any Medlars so we used Pears. The chutney was the base flavour to the curry and the jelly was an by-product. I didn’t bother posting it up here because it took so long to make that we didn’t get any photos, plus personally I was a little disappointed in the curry. The chutney and jelly were very nice though. Jenny will totally agree with you with the frustration of working out the setting point!
http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/hugh-fearnley-whittingstall/spicy-lamb-curry-recipe_p_1.html
I agree with the lack of thermometer problem too. Preserve making and bread making (in the Andrew Whitley method) both really require one.
You and Paul really seem to have taken a liking for whisky in your cooking
You’re right about the setting point, I think you need a lot of confidence and a bit of experience otherwise you spend hours. For the apple jelly we made, it said boil for 8 minutes – 1 hour later and about 5 goes at the frozen plate method and it still wasn’t ready. I ended up having to re-boil it the next week to get it to set.
A preserving pan and thermometer would definitely be really useful too!