Seville oranges

Orange & ginger marmalade

11 Comments / oranges, preserves, The Ordinary Cook /

In the depths of January we all need a sliver of brightness. Marmalade delivers that. It brightens up my morning toast every day.

Every year I look forward to the seville oranges arriving in the shops. I buy two kilos. One kilo to make marmalade straight away and one kilo to put in the freezer to make more in the summer. No one should be without a jar of marmalade in the cupboard.

Frozen oranges can be used straight from frozen using the method below.

My Aga Marmalade is my go to recipe, this just has the added zing of ginger. Feel free to omit it if ginger is not your thing.

1 kg seville oranges
1 lemon, sliced in half
10cm piece of root ginger
2kg granulated sugar
1 litre water
200g stem ginger in syrup

Method
This makes 8-10 jars of marmalade. Sterilise the jars by washing them well and then pop into a low oven (100C) for about 15 minutes.

Place the oranges, lemon and piece of root ginger in a pan. Add the water. The water should just cover the oranges if it doesn’t try using a smaller pan. I then place a smaller saucepan lid that fits inside the pan on top of the oranges to keep them submerged. Bring this to the boil and then lower the temperature to simmer the oranges until they are soft. This can take a couple of hours. If you are using an Aga you can then place the pan in the simmering oven.

Once the oranges are soft leave them to cool in the water. Once cool take the oranges out of the water and cut them in half. Scrape all of the pulp back into the cooking liquid including the pulp from the lemon. The lemon and piece of root ginger can both be discarded. Place the pulpy liquid back onto a medium heat and bring to the boil. Boil for 6 minutes. Strain the liquid through a sieve, pushing through as much pulp as you can. It is this pulp that will help the marmalade to set and give the marmalade plenty of flavour.

Cut the orange peel as thick or thin as you prefer. Pop a saucer in the freezer so that you can test the marmalade for wrinkles. Cut the stem ginger into small pieces (depending on how small or large you will want to eat it).

Put the sugar in with the water and stir over a gentle heat until the sugar has fully dissolved. Add the peel and stir well. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly, it should be rolling like lava from a volcano for 15 minutes. Take the cold saucer and place a spoonful of the marmalade on to it. Add the stem ginger. Leave to cool and then push your finger through to test for set. It should just wrinkle slightly. If it doesn’t boil it until it does. Take the pan off the heat and leave to cool for 10 minutes before pouring into the sterile jars and sealing.

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Marmalade

4 Comments / preserves /

Marmalade

I have been making marmalade. Every year I mean too, but most years it is a case of the seville orange season being over before I remember it is upon us. Some years, sevilles just aren’t easily available here. However, on Saturday I nipped into a supermarket and spotted some sevilles on display on my way out. Sometimes, things work out.

I have written about marmalade before but I did things slightly different this time. I sliced the lemons in half and popped them in the pot with the oranges to boil until tender. The flesh and pips of the lemons and the oranges were wrapped in muslin and popped in the pot to give up their pectin. The skin of the oranges and the lemons were both finely chopped (Mr OC prefers it this way, I like big thick shreds, but sometimes you have to please someone else).  If you look closely at the photo you can see the mottled appearance of the lemon skin. It looks slightly different to the orange skin. It seemed daft to pop the lemon in the bin when it could go into the marmalade. I also added three pieces of stem ginger (chopped finely) into the pot, but actually I haven’t added this in the ingredient list as I can’t detect the ginger in the finished marmalade. I think next time I will use root ginger in the muslin, and perhaps add some chopped stem ginger at the end of the boiling of the marmalade.

I like my marmalade to be quite soft, almost runny, rather than thick set. I boiled this one on a rolling boil to 106°c and tested it on a cold saucer. When it was showing the very slightest of wrinkle I fetched it off the heat and let it cool. It is perfect for me, but feel free to boil longer if you want a thicker set.

Seville oranges freeze well, so get plenty in, so that you can make some more when you get through this batch.

Makes about 8 jars
1 kg seville oranges
2 lemons cut in half
1½ litres of water
2 kg granulated or caster sugar

You will need a large pan, a piece of muslin or a clean tea towel, a sugar thermometer or a couple of saucers placed in the fridge to do the wrinkle test and about 8 sterilised jars.

To sterilise your jars wash them well, rinse with hot water and place in a low oven (100°c) for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven carefully (they will be very hot) without touching the inside of the jar or lid.

Place your oranges and cut lemons into a large pan and cover with the water. Bring to a simmer and simmer for about 2 hours until the oranges are tender. I cook mine in the simmering oven of the Aga. Take off the heat and leave to cool.

Once cool enough to handle, cut the oranges in half and scoop out the flesh and pips into a bowl lined with the muslin. Wrap the flesh up well in the muslin and pour the collected juices into the orange water and then place the muslin wrapped flesh into the water as well.  Chop the oranges and lemons to your desired thickness and place it all in the orange water. Add the sugar.

Place over a low heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and bring the marmalade to a rolling boil. If you have a thermometer place it in the pan and wait until the marmalade reaches 106°c. Test it on a cold saucer if you don’t have a thermometer. To do this pour a teaspoonful of the marmalade onto the cold saucer. Leave to cool and then push your fingertip through it. It should wrinkle slightly. Once it reaches this stage turn off the heat and leave the marmalade to cool a little. This will help with the distribution of the skin through the marmalade. I left mine covered with a lid until completely cold and then I could test the set. If it isn’t how you like it just bring it back to boil until it wrinkles more on a cold saucer. Decant carefully into the jars and seal well.

 

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Aga Marmalade

40 Comments / breakfast, oranges, preserves, The Ordinary Cook /

I adore marmalade.  I really enjoy the bitterness of the orange peel in contrast with the sweet jam.  In fact, I just had to get up to make some toast so that I could have some marmalade because writing about it made my mouth water.  Well, between you and me, I made two pieces and spread the other one with lemon curd. I think it is a well established fact that I am greedy, and now there are crumbs on the laptop.

This is the time of year for making marmalade as it needs to be made from Seville oranges and these are only available from markets in January and early February. The Seville orange is incredibly bitter and not at all one that you want to eat freshly peeled. But when mixed with a ton of sugar they make one of the best things that can be spread on toast. The lady who runs my local market tells me every year of the tale of the woman who was naughtily mixing her bag of oranges between the normal and the Seville.  The Seville is usually a bit dearer and this lady thought she was going to get herself a good deal. The market owner thought it appropriate that she let her get on with it and have fun at home playing orange roulette.

Seville oranges freeze very well, so buy them when you see them and put them in the freezer for making marmalade throughout the year.  In fact, I used frozen for this recipe as I mentioned to my mum that I was off to get some Sevilles and she still had some in her freezer from last year so I used those up. Use them from frozen.

I used Mary Berry’s recipe from The Aga Book. In this recipe she recommends that you simmer fresh fruit for 2 hours and frozen fruit overnight.  This makes me feel better as I missed that instruction and was planning to simmer them for two hours but fell asleep watching telly and went straight to bed having forgotten all about my oranges. You see, things always work out in the end.

This recipe made loads, about 10 jars, so unless you have friends and family who are marmalade fiends too you may want to halve the recipe. You will find another marmalade recipe of mine here.

1½kg (3lb) Seville oranges
Juice of 2 lemons
3 kg (6lb) sugar
2 litres (4 pints) water

Method

Put the whole oranges in the Aga preserving pan and squeeze in the lemon juice. Cover with the water and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, place the pan carefully in the simmering oven and leave to simmer until the oranges are tender (2 hours or so for fresh fruit, overnight for frozen). Remove the oranges and leave to cool. Once cool enough to handle cut them in half and scoop out all the pulp and pips and place these back into the water.  Bring to the boil and boil for 6 minutes.  Strain this liquid into a large bowl through a sieve and, using a spoon, force the pulp through the sieve.  It is this pulp which contains the pectin that will set the marmalade. Pour the liquid back into the preserving pan.

Cut the peel of the oranges as thinly or as thickly as you like your shreds to be and add these to the liquid, along with the sugar.  Bring the whole lot up to a rolling boil and boil until setting point is reached.  You can test for this with a sugar thermometer (105°c) or have a cold saucer ready and when a little is allowed to cool on this saucer it should wrinkle when pushed with your finger.

Allow the marmalade to cool a little (this will help with the distribution of peel through the jar rather than it all sitting at the top) and then pour into sterilised jars.

To sterilise your jars, wash in warm soapy water and rinse with hot water, then place on a baking tray in the simmering oven for twenty minutes.

May 2014: I have been requested to link to Aga Living as this is a recipe from Mary Berry’s Aga Book.

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