marmalade

Now I love preserving, I make jams and chutneys all the time, but I've never made marmalade. The main reason for this is because it tastes like the most bitter orange minced up into a paste with chewy bits in. But my wife likes it and she was given a large bag of Seville oranges at work so I thought it was best to try my hand at making some - at worst it would make the house smell nicer than boiling vinegar for a chutney! I found a recipe on the Internet and loosely followed it (as usual). This involved poaching the oranges for a couple of hours, then cutting them in half and scooping out the insides and pith into a separate saucepan. This pith, flesh and seeds then gets simmered for a while before getting poured into muslin cloth and suspended (precariously) over the rest of the liquid.

The peal is then cut into thin strips and added to this liquid as well. As I had about 4 lbs of oranges I added about 6lbs of sugar and after squeezing the last bits of juice from the cloth into the pan I boiled it rapidly until setting point was reached. This took f-o-r-e-v-e-r, I must buy some petin when I see it!

In the end I made 12 jars of marmalade and Claire said it was lovely (I think it smells nice and keep trying it, but every time it taste terrible and leaves a bitter taste at the back of my throat - I don't think I'll ever be a fan!). Bad photo at the end sorry!