Linda Razzell's orange marmalade with chillies

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Daphne
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Linda Razzell's orange marmalade with chillies

Post by Daphne »

Help! I made this marmalade this week, followed the recipe exactly, I was concerned about 2.5 litres of water plus the juice from the oranges and lemons as there was so much liquid involved. I jarred the 'liquid' turned the jars upside down, some in the fridge and some outside. 2 days later and the consistency could be drank rather than spread! Any ideas what I did wrong?
I made Helen Ferrieux's apricot jam this summer and that was delicious and a lot less work.
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Sue
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Post by Sue »

Looking at various recipes I believe it should have been 1.5 L of water but not being a marmalade maker can't guarantee I am right. Most recipes say 6 cups and one cup is 250ml. I would cut back slightly on the 1.5 though as the recipe you used includes lemon juice whereas most are just orange. Did you keep the pips and place in a muslin bag in the pot whilst cooking for added pectin?
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Post by martyn94 »

The standard calculation is that you need something over 60% sugar, by weight, in the finished product. There is some sugar in the fruit, but not a lot. So if you're adding 1.8 kilos of sugar, you need to boil it down until your stuff weighs around 3 kilos in total (or say 1.8 kilos before you add the sugar, and "boil until setting point", as the recipe says). If you are starting with 2.5 litres (equals 2.5 kilos) of water, plus the fruit, you need to boil it down a lot, but you probably need to do so anyway, to soften the rind: it takes a lot of cooking. Or on the other hand, don't bother: marmalade made with sweet oranges is pretty feeble, with or without the chilli.
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Post by Daphne »

Thanks for your suggestions. Yes Sue I did keep the pips and fruit pulp in a muslin bag and boiled it with the rest. I won't be making marmalade again as it looks like this lot will be getting drained down the sink. However, we do have tree of kuamquats, not yet ripe so I have decided to make jam/marmalade from them instead of giving them away as I usually do! If anybody has a fool proof recipe otherwise I'll Google one!
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Post by Sue »

I made a chilli chutney which ended up as a chilli sauce. No matter how much I boiled it, it just wouldn't thicken. I had jars and jars of it, just too much to eat. Ended up this week in a ziplock bag and binned!
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Post by martyn94 »

Daphne wrote:Thanks for your suggestions. Yes Sue I did keep the pips and fruit pulp in a muslin bag and boiled it with the rest. I won't be making marmalade again as it looks like this lot will be getting drained down the sink. However, we do have etree of kuamquats, not yet ripe so I have decided to make jam/marmalade from them instead of giving them away as I usually do! If anybody has a fool proof recipe otherwise I'll Google one!
If you haven't already put it down the sink, you can rescue it simply by boiling it down some more. Jam needs pectin, acid, and a sufficiently high concentration of sugar. If you used the lemons, you have the acid. If you boiled up the pips and the pulp, you have the pectin. All you need to do is push up the sugar concentration.
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Post by martyn94 »

As to the kumquats, you don't really need a recipe, any more than you do for any jam. You just need to know where you want to end up. A bit of acid: perhaps add the juice of a lemon or two for kumquats. Enough pectin which shouldn't be an issue with a citrus fruit. Enough sugar: weigh your cooked kumquats, add the same weight of sugar, and boil it hard for a few minutes.
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Post by martyn94 »

By way of afterthought, recipes for jam are perfectly useful. The problem, more than in most cases, is to know when it has finished cooking. You can do that in sophisticated ways, eg by using a jam thermometer, or by trial and error, as I have done.
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Marmalade

Post by hamyat »

I make marmalade every year and use 2lb of Seville oranges,1 lemon 4lb sugar and 4 pints of water. It needs to simmer for about 2 hours and then a fast boil for about 15 mins to make a'set'.I find those quantities work every time.
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Post by Kate »

Will pass your comments on to Linda. I'm sure she'll be interested in the results and everyone's comments.
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Post by Daphne »

Thanks Kate, I'm in the thro's of re boiling it but I'm not holding my breath! In a way it's my own fault because I did look at Internet before I started this recipe after seeing the quantity of water and juice but still went ahead with the recipe even though everything elseI looked at were so different in quantities.
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Post by Kate »

I hope I haven't copied the wrong quantities!! :oops: :oops:
Robert Ferrieux
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orange marmalade

Post by Robert Ferrieux »

Hamyat - WHERE do you find Seville oranges? You can't find them on the market. I've got an excellent recipe (a lot of work but results are unforgettable - pm or email: hfx1@free.fr) but haven't been able to obtain suitable fruit these last few years. Neighbours with orange trees wouldn't give you the time of day, never mind giving/selling the fruit.[
Thanks for any suggestions.

Helen[/list]
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Post by martyn94 »

I think the problem is that they are only available for a few weeks in Jan/Feb and in any case almost never in France. A friend in Paris has claimed to find them at a "bio" market at Versailles, which isn't much use for present purposes. If you just crave decent marmalade, try this

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15261/Prepare ... le-Oranges

The postage is not too steep if you buy about five-years' worth at a time, and ignore the instructions on the can. If you make it very much stronger than they say, it makes very decent marmalade.
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Post by Daphne »

I retreived my marmalade thanks to Martyn 94 suggesting re-boiling. I reboiled it for over an hour until I could see the obvious reduction The consistency is still a little runnier than I would have prefered but it can be spread.Thanks Martyn!
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Post by martyn94 »

[quote="Daphne"]I retreived my marmalade thanks to Martyn 94 suggesting re-boiling. I reboiled it for over an hour until I could see the obvious reduction The consistency is still a little runnier than I would have prefered but it can be spread.Thanks Martyn![/quo
Glad to help. If you make jam/marmalade/chutney regularly, it is well worth having a "preserving pan" (as well as a really fast ring on your cooker) - ie a big wide pan that you can boil really hard without it boiling over. It speeds things up and preserves the flavours. I got mine secondhand on eBay.
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Post by Sue »

I use the pasta pan I bought in Lidl, removing, of course, the strainer. Perfect dimension both height and width wise.
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Post by martyn94 »

If you want to get into it, I warmly recommend this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Preservation-Fr ... 0112428649

It's the fourteenth edition of a book which has been published since the '20s by the old UK Min of Ag. It's a bit dated in places (I can't imagine ever having so many vegetable marrows that I'd want to waste money on the sugar to turn them into jam), and it's as sedate as you might expect from a book written by civil servants.

But it covers the territory, and you're pretty much guaranteed not to give yourself food poisoning (which I think was why they wrote it in the first place).
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Post by martyn94 »

martyn94 wrote:I think the problem is that they are only available for a few weeks in Jan/Feb and in any case almost never in France. A friend in Paris has claimed to find them at a "bio" market at Versailles, which isn't much use for present purposes. If you just crave decent marmalade, try this

http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15261/Prepare ... le-Oranges

The postage is not too steep if you buy about five-years' worth at a time, and ignore the instructions on the can. If you make it very much stronger than they say, it makes very decent marmalade.
I found, too late, that the generally-pretty-good greengrocers on quai Forgas in Port-Vendres has oranges amères. By the time I noticed, they had less than a kilo left, and pretty soggy (and no more till next year). I have put a note in my (electronic) calendar for next year.
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Post by Sus »

Martyn94 thanks for recommending the book on preserving from the Min of Ag, I ordered a copy and have just started reading it. It does cover the topic in depth! And as you pointed out the style is priceless...

“The phenomenon of life as we know it in the vegetable and animal kingdoms is but a part of the great natural cycle, a perpetual building up and breaking down.”
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Post by martyn94 »

Sus wrote:Martyn94 thanks for recommending the book on preserving from the Min of Ag, I ordered a copy and have just started reading it. It does cover the topic in depth! And as you pointed out the style is priceless...

“The phenomenon of life as we know it in the vegetable and animal kingdoms is but a part of the great natural cycle, a perpetual building up and breaking down.”
It is quaint, but sound and thorough. And you can still easily get the kit here to do things they cover which have almost disappeared in the UK, like bottling fruit.

I recommend the plum chutney (I use quetsches) and also the date chutney if you find an ethnic shop selling cooking dates. And all the better if you can leave it (or some of it) to marry for a few years. And the plum sauce: high grade HP sauce, if you ever get a yen for that.

Incidentally, I seem to have forgotten to post that I did eventually find some OK bitter oranges round here. At the Saturday market in Argeles, towards the end of the main stretch where it bends to the left. €1 a kilo, and very good marmelade, even if I say so myself. But too late for any more this year.
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Post by Sus »

Thanks, and yes I agree it covers the topic very thoroughly ... I will try the date and plum chutneys, I also thought the green tomato, ginger and banana one sounded interesting!
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Post by martyn94 »

I have just put a couple of kilos of bitter oranges on to cook for some marmalade. They were from my greengrocer on quai forgas in Port-Vendres: they don't have them on display, but will get them if you ask. And I guess yours would too, if you have a decent greengrocer - but don't hang about, the season is short. All I need now is some more jam pots.
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Post by Sus »

martyn94 wrote:I have just put a couple of kilos of bitter oranges on to cook for some marmalade. They were from my greengrocer on quai forgas in Port-Vendres: they don't have them on display, but will get them if you ask. And I guess yours would too, if you have a decent greengrocer - but don't hang about, the season is short. All I need now is some more jam pots.
Is that greengrocer in PV pretty obvious / easy to find? I wont get any close to me so will need to drive down the valley anyway. Did you ever find any on the market in Figueres?
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Post by martyn94 »

Sus wrote:
martyn94 wrote:I have just put a couple of kilos of bitter oranges on to cook for some marmalade. They were from my greengrocer on quai forgas in Port-Vendres: they don't have them on display, but will get them if you ask. And I guess yours would too, if you have a decent greengrocer - but don't hang about, the season is short. All I need now is some more jam pots.
Is that greengrocer in PV pretty obvious / easy to find? I wont get any close to me so will need to drive down the valley anyway. Did you ever find any on the market in Figueres?
It's about 50m down the quai on the left-hand side of the port looking from landward (i.e. on what used to be the main road from Banyuls to Collioure). They had a scant couple of kilos today as I passed to get my baguette (and were just shutting up till Tuesday). If it would suit, I would happily snap them up for you.

I haven't seen them at Figueres, but I don't think I've looked very hard at just the right time of year. I found them in the Saturday market at Argeles last year (towards the bottom of the main drag, just where it curls round to the left).
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Post by Sus »

martyn94 wrote:
Sus wrote:
martyn94 wrote:I have just put a couple of kilos of bitter oranges on to cook for some marmalade. They were from my greengrocer on quai forgas in Port-Vendres: they don't have them on display, but will get them if you ask. And I guess yours would too, if you have a decent greengrocer - but don't hang about, the season is short. All I need now is some more jam pots.
Is that greengrocer in PV pretty obvious / easy to find? I wont get any close to me so will need to drive down the valley anyway. Did you ever find any on the market in Figueres?
It's about 50m down the quai on the left-hand side of the port looking from landward (i.e. on what used to be the main road from Banyuls to Collioure). They had a scant couple of kilos today as I passed to get my baguette (and were just shutting up till Tuesday). If it would suit, I would happily snap them up for you.

I haven't seen them at Figueres, but I don't think I've looked very hard at just the right time of year. I found them in the Saturday market at Argeles last year (towards the bottom of the main drag, just where it curls round to the left).
That would be great! I will pm you to work out the details.
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Marmalade

Post by hamyat »

After being out of stock for 2 weeks ( bearing in mind that the season is very short) my Sainsburys informed me that Seville oranges are in short supply due to the bad weather in Spain. They had 1 box in last week and these were all pre ordered - yes I did manage to order some and the marmalade is bubbling away on the stove as I type.
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Re: Marmalade

Post by martyn94 »

hamyat wrote:After being out of stock for 2 weeks ( bearing in mind that the season is very short) my Sainsburys informed me that Seville oranges are in short supply due to the bad weather in Spain. They had 1 box in last week and these were all pre ordered - yes I did manage to order some and the marmalade is bubbling away on the stove as I type.
Gosh: we're all simmering away to a common end - it makes you think (very briefly) that Brexit was just a bad dream after all.

If I had a local Sainsbury's, I think I'd just buy "Tawny" marmalade by Wilkins of Tiptree: it's one of the very few commercial preserves (or anything else) which is emphatically better than anything you would make yourself. But they have had a lot of practice. (Incidentally, I remember when Sainsbury's first arrived in Cheshire, decades ago, to bring bourgeois food to the unwashed north of Luton: it was a bit as though St Augustine had arrived with a chunk of the True Cross. On the other hand, people got really quite excited about Waitrose, a decade or so later).

It is notorious (I think) that bitter oranges are grown almost entirely for the U.K. marmalade market. The only reference I know in French cooking is in E David's recipe for "boeuf à la gardiane", which calls for a strip of dried peel (a somewhat bigger strip of sweet orange peel works ok for me). I always mean to hold back a few strips of peel, to dry, when making marmalade, and always forget.

The disruption to Spanish veg and fruit really does seem to be "a thing", as they say. Much as I like courgettes, €5 a kilo is a bit rich for my blood.
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