Is your marmalade bland and boring?

The best jar of commercial marmalade doesn't pack the punch of what you can make at home, with fresh ingredients.  At this time of year, so dark and snowy, spreading a bit of real marmalade on your toast is like infusing sunshine into your spirit.

I've just made another batch of Lemon and Rosepetal Marmalade, and within the next few days I'll be producing another batch of Seville Orange Marmalade, Orange Blossom Blessed. 

Seeds are kept in a tea ball, so they can add pectin naturally.

The grocery stores are beginning to stock nice organic lemons, and Seville oranges are arriving now.  You wouldn't want to eat a Seville orange, but oh, they do make a powerful and fragrant marmalade.

Make sure you don't give them all away!  

Making marmalade requires patience,  There's a lot of scrubbing to do, then fine slicing, then seed plucking and finally boiling for at least a couple of hours in total, but oh what gloriousness you finally spread on a very good breakfast roll.  

More Marmalade! Lemon with Rose Petals

Lemon Marmalade with Rose Petals (Second marmalade recipe!)

I can’t resist using this picture of Shirley’s window a second time, especially since this is the second marmalade installment.  It’s like I added the green bottle yesterday and the purple bottle today. 

That’s an issue for me: self discipline.  I’ll never manage to do what Shirley has done.  Will this whole blog get highjacked by marmalade? 

Unlikely, since it’s high in sugar, which does not suit my Adelle Davis guidelines, and I eat it only very rarely, and make it perhaps once a year, although twice this year, so far.



Since the peels are used, use organic lemons.

Anyway, I had all those leftover organic lemons from the Curried Easter dinner, and I needed to use them up!

This lemon marmalade is absolutely gorgeous!  Yesterday, I was eating it with plain yogurt, but there will be no such sugary transgressions today, I hope. 

6 organic lemons, washed
6 cups cold water
pinch of salt
1 cup vanilla sugar
2 cups raw sugar cane crystals
1 ½ tablespoons rose petals
1 ½ teaspoons orange blossom water

Sterilized jars and lids

Cut ends off lemons and discard.  Halve lemons, then cut into slices, then slice those finely.  I did the last three lemons with my sharpest knife to achieve the finest thread possible, because I like a variety of textures.  Pick out and keep the seeds.  These lemons had from zero to three seeds each, so I had very few, which means less pectin.  Maybe one should save orange seeds for such a purpose?

Use sharpest knife to slice thinly.  Keep pits!

As you are cutting the lemons, slide them and their juice into the pot.  Once all lemons are in the pot, put the seeds into a tea ball, or cheesecloth, and place it in with the lemons, add the salt and pour in the water.  Put a lid on the pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to medium low to simmer for 30 to 45 minutes.  Turn off, and let sit overnight. 

In the morning, set up your jar sterilizing unit. I use a big canning pot, filled with water and jars.  I rigged up a lid, and put the heat on high.  Turn the heat back on under the lemons, and add the sugars.  Stir, and bring to a boil.  

Once it’s boiling, reduce heat to medium low, and boil for at least 40 minutes. 

This is probably the best time to add the rose petals.  Being rose flavour greedy, I added mine the evening before, in the first boil, and spent the evening floating around the house in a state of nose rapture.  However, I regretted that in the morning, because I could see that the pigment had leeched out of the petals, and turned my marmalade an apricot pink.

The pits add the pectin!

You need the petals to cook long enough to not get snarled in people’s teeth, but not so long as to lose their shape and colour.  To compensate, I added more petals in the last half hour of cooking this morning.  As it became apparent that the lemons were starting to jell, I turned the heat down further, and started in with the jell tests.  

Put a tiny amount, less than a half teaspoon onto a cold plate, to see if it’s still runny.  If it’s syrupy, keep cooking.  If it shows some resistance, it’s done.  Once again, my marmalade came out a bit runny, but I find that preferable to the impossibly stiff concoction I made a few years ago.  Once you decide the consistency is right, turn off the heat, and stir in the orange blossom water.  Ladle into sterilized jars, put on the sterilized lids, and loosely place the bands on the jars.  Tighten the bands 24 hours later. 

Husband person said this reminds him of lemon curd, which we used to enjoy on toast till I read the ingredients one sad day. 

I’m looking forward to taking this to a garden party whose host has just acquired some fine English bone china which will compliment her dahlia garden.  I will take this lemon and rose petal marmalade, along with scones and Devonshire cream. 

Again, it’s not remotely Indian, unless you consider those Brits doing their best while in India to lord it over the Indians, holding teacups made of fine bone china, as they enviously eyed the Indian art, jewellery, architecture, philosophy, women, music, food, the list is too long…  Anway, slap my hands if you see me heading toward the sugar, please!

Would be even more delicious on a scone, with maybe a bit of cream?

This made three and a half jars... but so worth it!

Duck a l'orange de l'Inde

Duck à l’orange de l’Inde

Way back in the late sixties, I went to visit my sister when she was a university student in Edmonton, where she made me duck à l’orange.  I thought I had died and floated to heaven.  Yesterday I made marmalade from scratch, and had one Seville orange left over, and there was a sale on duck, so guess what?    

The Masala

3 teaspoons cumin seed
2 teaspoons fennel seed
1 teaspoon chilli flakes
4 cloves
Ten or so turns of freshly ground black pepper
1 large cinnamon stick
2 inches shredded ginger
3 cloves fresh garlic, smashed
2 small hot chillies, sliced thickly
1 Seville orange, sliced thickly

In a mortar and pestle, coarsely grind the first four ingredients.

Everything Else

1 roasting duck
¼ cup coarse salt
sprinkles of turmeric  (I keep some in a salt shaker)
freshly ground black pepper
water to fill roasting pan up to an inch deep
2 oranges, squeezed, pulp included
1 tablesoon marmalade, homemade if possible

Pour most of the coarse salt into the cavities of the duck, but some into your hand.  Rub that salt into the duck, as if the salt were a cleaning agent, which it actually is!  Rinse it off, and rinse inside the duck, being sure to pluck out any objects such as packaged giblets or a neck.  I throw these out, and rinse like mad.  Some of the salt will stay behind, but too much would be unpleasant.  Dry the interior and exterior of the duck with lots of paper towels, and put into a container for marinating.  Stuff the cavities with most of the masala spices, including the ginger, garlic and oranges.  Pat the rest of the masala over the  duck skin.  Cover, and let marinate in the fridge for 24 hours.

Heat oven to 500 F degrees.  Prick the duck all over with a sharp fork.  Sprinkle enough turmeric and freshly ground pepper over it to add a nice colour.  Using a non-stick roasting pan with a tray, fill the pan with water, up to an inch deep.  Put the duck on the tray, being sure the duck is above the water level.  Roast for 30 minutes.  Turn heat down to 350 F.  Check from time to time that there is still some water in the pan.  Cook another hour and a half, or until thermometer registers 170 F.  When it does, crank the oven heat up to broil, and watch carefully.  The skin should be darkened and caramelised, but nothing should burn.  This should take less than five minutes.  Remove the duck and set aside on a separate platter, covered with tin foil to rest.  Meanwhile, pour the juices into a gravy separator, and add about eight ice-cubes.  Pour the orange juice and pulp into the pan to deglaze it, and cook gently.  As the duck juices cool in the gravy separator, remove the fat and pour the duck juices back into the pan.  Add the marmalade.  Continue to cook gently, stirring often. Taste to see if salt is needed.  Pour into a small pitcher.

 I served the duck and sauce with broccoli and an “ancient grains rice mix”  made from red rice, barley, rye berries, black barley, whole oats, quinoa, and long grain red.  (Available at a certain big box ‘members’ only outlet.  If you use this mix, cook for at least an hour, with another tablespoon of marmalade, otherwise following package directions.)  This meal will float you back to the sixties, à le Ravi Shankar!