Orange marmalade

Well, we did it. We beat Germany. Before that, we beat Russia. Feels better already. The question is, why should we beat the Brazilians? Have we got something against them too? 😉

I hope you made yourselves some nachos with guacamole to eat while you cheered the team on? I made myself some orange marmalade instead. That wonderful fig jam gave me such a taste for making preserves that I’ve gone at it in earnest.

Only I’m still waiting for my little 100 ml jars so I can heat-process my preserves. Then I’ll be the master of all things pasteurisation. Wow! World champion.

You’ll know from the pumpkin cheesecake recipe that I bought almost a kilo of fresh figs, so as well as processing the orange marmalade I’ll be making more of that outstanding fig jam. Sweet, sticky, with a little crunch between your teeth (those gorgeous tiny fig seeds…).

What’s the orange marmalade in this recipe like? Completely different. I’ll be quite honest: it took me a while to get this recipe right. I wanted it intensely citrusy but not bitter. Sweet, but tart. And I got there. It wasn’t easy. Basically I kept adding a bit of sugar, then some honey. But it worked. The orange marmalade you get from this recipe is quite sweet enough. There’s more than a hint of orange and lime to it. But it isn’t bitter.

And although I was pretty sceptical at first, I have to admit it turned out well. Give it a try!

At a glance: 

Preparation time: about 5 hours (over two days in all, about 3 hours on the first and 2 hours on the second)

Serves: oh, enough to see you through a few long, cold evenings

Calories: depends what you have it with

Ingredients for a festive marmalade:

• 4 large oranges
• 2 limes
• a glass of dry port (or Madeira)
• a glass of sugar
• half a glass of cane sugar
• 4 tablespoons of honey
• two tablespoons of mixed dried fruit (chopped dried apricots and sultanas)

Recipe for stocking up for winter:

I washed all the oranges thoroughly and scalded them. I did the same with the limes. I cut the “backsides” and the “fronts” off the oranges and limes (the thicker bits of peel at the top and bottom of each fruit).

I left the peel on the first orange and cut it into thin rounds, then tipped them into a medium-sized pot. I peeled the remaining oranges, sliced them into thin rounds and added them to the pot (use a sharp knife so you don’t leave most of the juice on the chopping board). I sliced the limes into rounds too, peel and all, and added them to the oranges.

I added the cane sugar and the white sugar and stirred. I poured in a glass of port (I bought the cheapest one at Żabka, though you’d probably do well to choose a better one) and stirred again.

I put the pot on the “flame” and started heating it. When the oranges and limes in port start to boil, adjust the heat so they simmer very slowly (I started at 3 on a scale of 1–10 on my induction hob, then turned it down to 2 on a scale of 1–10). Stir the fruit every few minutes. After about 30 minutes I added the honey and the dried fruit, which I’d scalded and chopped finely beforehand.

I carried on cooking. The marmalade should become quite thick and stop boiling as such; it should just go “blup, blup”.

After roughly 3 hours I set it aside to cool. Once cool, I put it in the fridge for about 7 hours, then cooked it again over a very low “flame” (2 on a scale of 1–10 for me) for about another hour. I let it cool again. The orange and lime marmalade is ready. You can spoon it into little jars and heat-process them. Enjoy!