Annalena makes marmalade

I believe I have written of my past adventures with the jam pot. T hose were fourteen or fifteen years ago. They are comical, scary, an example of a true kitchen obsession, and one I thought I had put behind me.
Until this weekend.

Look, I have no idea how my mind works, and probably would be scared to death if I did, but somehow, I got it in my head that I wanted to make some marmalade.

Well, the Citrus Bomb and the Artichoke Queen had SOMETHING to do with that. See, I had asked for some seville oranges in last week's citrus box. I had visions of a marinade for a pork tenderloin, that I never made. Since the ladies, like this lady, believe that "anything worth doing is worth overdoing" (AMEN SISTAH), there were fifteen of them in my box. Now, that's a lot of marinade, so some switch went off in my head and said "marmalade."

I could see Guy's eyes rolling to the back of his head. BUT... what I found was that this recipe makes a very reasonable amount of the stuff. Again, this is a bit time consuming, but it makes a really good product. I am going to give it for seville oranges, which you can still get, but I think you could probably use others. I will check with my friend June Taylor, who makes the ULTIMATE jams.

Incidentally, once you make this, you will NEVER carp about the price of good jam or marmelade again. And if you do, you don't deserve to eat it.

The recipe, is shamelessly stolen from David Lebovitz, who posted it on his blog. I changed it in one respect, as I will tell you.

You start with about three pounds of sevilles. For me, this was six of them (David's recipe called for six, and I weighed them). Half them, squeeze them through a juicer (the hand kind is fine), and save the pits. Of course, save the juice as well. Also - and here's where I varied things - squeeze two blood oranges and add that juice to the seville orange juice.

Gather all those peels, and cut them roughly, but not too big. If the pieces are more than, say 1/3 of an inch wide, you will have problems. This will take a bit of time , but not that much. Dump the peels into a pot, and add 3 quarts of water . Then, take all those seeds, wrap them i cheesecloth, tie it tight and add it to the pot as well. Those pits are LOADED with pectin and will give your marmalade a soft set as it cools. Turn on the pot, and then when the water boils, drop it to simmering, and cook for about 30 minutes. You're softening the peel here. When it's done, pull out the bag of pits.

You can proceed immediately after you do this, but there's some kind of peaceful rest in letting the stuff sit overnight. I think it helped make good marmelade, but what do I know. In any event, add that juice and two pounds of sugar . (you best make sure your pot is nice and big).

Either right away, or the next morning, start heating this, and when it boils, lower the heat to simmer. Now, you need your thermometer, and you need PATIENCE. You need to cook this to 220 degrees. Seems fairly simple, after all, it was boiling, that was 212.

WRONG. Heat distribution in a mass like this takes a while. It took nearly an hour and a half of slow simmering for me. Toward the end, you will see massive reduction in the amount of liquid, a thickening of the syrup, and you will probably have to stir with some regularity to keep the peel from settling and burning. It's all good. When the mass has come to 220 and stayed there for a minute or two, get it off the heat . The stuff will "set" some as it cools, but t his is never going to be as firm as a commercial jam, and that's just fine. Get some jars, and fill em up and share them.

I think you get about a quart and a half of marmalade out of this, with a very intense flavor and a lovely orange rose color. I don't seal the jars, so you will have to refrigerate the stuff. That being the case, unless you have a friend who TRULY loves jam, use small jars.

We put some on fresh baked whole wheat bread right away and it was GREAT. I'm thinking soft white cheese as well. Now THAT sounds good, and very very European.

Give it a try.