Seville Orange Jelly Marmalade

I wait anxiously all year for the Seville Oranges to make this treat. This year I made 12 pounds of it. My kitchen was like a jam factory but it smelled heavenly. Just as I screwed the last lid in place I found out Seville Oranges can be frozen. Oh well I will remember  next year.
There is nothing quite like the tang of marmalade made with these bitter oranges. I am not fond of thick cut marmalade so I strain it and add a some finely cut peel to give it a little texture. It is a great job on dark January days when the weather keeps you indoors. So obliging of these fruits to be in season at such a time. It's a three day event but so worth it.

Makes About 2 Kilos/4 1/2 lbs

450gms/1lb Seville oranges
1.75litres/3pints/7 1/2 cups water
1.3kgs/3lbs/81/2 cups preserving or granulated sugar
60mls/4tablespoons lemon juice

DAY 1

Wash and dry the oranges using a soft brush to get into all the wee dimples on the skin.
If you want some fine peel through your jelly thinly pare off the skin and finely shred the rind from 2-3 of the oranges. A zester is good for this. Place it in a muslin square and  make a little bag tying off with a long piece of string.
Squeeze the juice from the oranges and place the juice and pips into a large pan.
Chop up the remaining orange skins including the pith and add it to the pan.
Add the bag of shredded peel tying the string to the handle so you can fish it out easily later.
Cover with the water and leave to soak overnight.

DAY 2
Bring the mixture to the boil,reduce the heat and simmer for 1 1/2 hours
Remove the bag of peel and set to the side for later.
Put the kettle on
Line a large strainer with a double layer of muslin.
Now pour some boiling water through the muslin to scald it.(or you can use a scalded jelly bag if you have one)
Place the strainer over a large bowl and leave to strain overnight.
Don't be tempted to squeeze or push the fruit pulp as it will make the resulting jelly cloudy.

DAY 3
Heat your oven to 150.C/300.F and pop your clean jam jars on a baking tray and set inside the oven to sterilise and heat.
Pour the strained juice into a large saucepan discarding the pulp.
Add the sugar, lemon juice and rind .
Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved then bring to the boil and boil rapidly for about  twenty minutes or so until setting point is reached(105.C/220F) Sometimes this can take longer so don't be alarmed. A lot depends on the amount of juice and the vigour of the boil.
If you don't have a sugar thermometer use a chilled plate. Drop a little jam onto it and wait for a few minutes and if the surface wrinkles when gently pushed with your index finger it is done.
Remove the scum with a slotted spoon.
Leave to cool for a while then pot up into your nice warm jars.
Put the lids or covers on and leave to set.
Enjoy

Cranberry and Orange Jam

Oh the weather outside is frightful

But inside it's so delightful

Since we've no place to go

Let it Snow Let it Snow Let it Snow

 

 Well it has certainly been doing that this past while. What better way to spend incarceration than in a warm kitchen cooking up festive goodies
 Last year I made Nigella Lawson's cranberry jam. It was grand but I felt it was a bit stodgy. I like to use it with the turkey, cold meats and cheese as well as on my toast and prefer a softer texture. I also wanted the addition of orange. I always like the flavour of oranges at Christmas so I conjured this up in my kitchen. Nice soft  texture and lovely flavour. A little sharpness against the sweetness and a lovely hint of orange. I am looking forward to serving this on my table come Christmas day. Incredibly easy to make and perfect for beginners as cranberries are packed full of pectin so setting is never a problem. Give it a go. It can't fail and it is much much nicer than shop bought cranberry sauces for Christmas. Makes lovely gifts too.


Ingredients

1 kilo /2.2lbs cranberries fresh or frozen
1 kilo/2.2 lbs  sugar
Grated rind and juice of two oranges (approx 250mls/1 cup)
500mls /2 cups water

Large heavy based pan

5-6 450gm/1lb jars sterilised in a warm oven

Method

For a smooth jam, place the cranberries in the saucepan with the orange juice and water.
Heat gently until the cranberries just start to soften.
Whizz the mixture in the food processor.
Return to the pot and add the sugar and orange peel.
Heat gently stirring all the time until the sugar dissolves, that is to say when it no longer feels gritty.
Bring the mix to a fast rolling boil for about twenty minutes.
leave to cool slighlty then pot into your warm jars.
You can test for a set by dropping some jam onto a cold plate, leave for a few minutes and push gently with your finger. If it wrinkles it is done. Really you will find you don't need to worry as this will set perfectly due to the pectin content of the cranberries.
If you want whole pieces of fruit just put everything into the saucepan and boil.
Simplicity itself.

Raspberry Jam

Lucie has a lovely Blog, Cooking at Marystow. which I visit quite a lot. She had a post about jam the other day which used frozen fruit which I thought was a great idea. I wanted to make raspberry jam but the fresh raspberries are lovely just now but much too nice and too pricey to make jam. It's a very easy jam to make and quick. The rule of thumb is 1 lb (450g) of fruit to 1lb (450g) of sugar so it is very easy to calculate whatever the amount of fruit you have. It is just lovely on a freshly baked scone. I don't think it's a good idea to make vast quantities of jam at once as it takes longer to boil. This makes the sugar caramelise and you get a very dark jam. This is great news if you want dark marmalade but not so for fresh fruit jam. A Kilo of fruit will give you about four 12 oz/350g jars of jam. I like to push the raspberries through a sieve to take out some of the seeds but if they don't worry you there is no need to bother. Remember to use a very big pan as the fruit and sugar need room to boil. Raspberries, like most soft fruits, are low in pectin so I use jam sugar to reach a set. It makes life a lot easier.


Equipment

Large heavy based saucepan/stock pot/preserving pan
Warm sterilised jam jars (Pop them in the oven while you are making the jam this does both jobs)
Sieve if required
Wooden spoon or spatula for stirring.
Large jug
Sugar Thermometer if you have one or place a small saucer in the fridge

Ingredients

I Kilo of raspberries frozen or fresh (get the cheapest frozen you can find)
1 Kilo of jam or preserving sugar
Juice of a lemon


Method

Reducing seeds

Place the raspberries in the pan and heat until the juices run.
Push fruit through a wide gauge sieve.
This will remove most but not all of the seeds.
You need to keep scraping it back and forth with a spatula to get all the pulp through..
Now place the juice in a pan with the sugar and lemon juice.

You can skip this bit and just put the fruit in the pan with the sugar and lemon juice.
Keep stirring over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. (This is but a few minutes)
Turn up the heat and bring to a rolling boil for about 4 -5 minutes until a set is reached.
If you are using a jam thermometer a set is 102.C/220.F
If you aren't using a thermometer place about a teasp of the jam on a cold saucer and leave for a few moments. Push it gently with your finger. if it wrinkles it has reached a set.
Using your jug decant into the warm jars.
Wait for it to cool and enjoy

Beetroot Chutney

I love beetroot. I love the colour. I love the way your hands turn bright pink when working with it. Oh the simple pleasures of life in the kitchen. I prefer this chutney to plain old pickled beetroot. If you grow your own this is the perfect way of using it.. The recipe comes from my Mother's old recipe book. Ludicrously simple, you just can't fail. I love it on just about everything. It is perfect with goats cheese and the colour gives wonderful contrast. It keeps for ages in a cool dark place.


Beetroot Chutney

Ingredients

1.3Kilos/3 lbs cooked beetroot cubed
225g/ 1/2 lb cooking apples cubed
2 large onions finely chopped
225g/ 1/2 lb sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teasp salt
568mls/1 pint malt vinegar
juice of a lemon

Approx 6 warm sterilised jam jars.

Method

Place the vinegar, salt, ginger, lemon juice, and sugar in a large thick based pan.
Add the apples and onions and give it all a good stir.
Boil for20 minutes
Add the beetroot amd boil for a further 15 mins or until nice and thick
Spoon into the warm jars.
Seal tightly.
Store in a cool dark place

That's it

Chilli Jam

My Husband picked up a copy Of Nigella new book 'Nigella's Christmas' for me just after it was published. It is a simply lovely book. As well as the recipes being of the usual Nigella standard the illustrations and ideas for Christmas decorations are wonderful. A beautiful book to simply sit down, read and enjoy. The recipe for Chilli Jam sang to me. It tastes every bit as good as it looks. Not too hot but tongue tinglingly tasty. Just lovely with savoury food. Excellent with cheese and cold meats. A real keeper of a recipe. Easy to make I would highly recommend it. You do need jam sugar/pectin added sugar to make this otherwise it won't set.

150gms/5oz long fresh red chillies de seeded and cut into four pieces each.
150gms/5oz sweet red peppers cored de seeded and cut into chunks
1kg/2.2lbs Jam sugar
600mls cider vinegar

6x250 ml/40z sterilized sealable jars with vinegar proof lids


Put the cut up chillies into the food processsor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the chunks of sweet pepper and pulse again until you have a vibrantly red-flecked processor bowl

Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a wide, medium-sized pan over a low heat without stirring. (No I don't know why either)

Scrape the pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring to the boil and leave it at a rollicking boil for 10 minutes

Take the pan off the heat and allow to cool. The liquid will become more syrupy, then from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly like as it cools.

After about 40 minutes, or once the red flecks are more or less evenly distributed in the jelly (as the liquid firms up, the bits of chilli and pepper start being suspended in it rather than floating in it), ladle it into your jars. If you want to stir it gently at this stage it will do no harm. Then seal tightly.

Make the jam up to one month before using or giving.
Store in a cool dark place for up to a year.
Once opened store in the fridge and use within a month

From Nigella Christmas-Nigella Lawson

My Tip :If you don't have vinegar proof lids line the lids with a wee circle of grease proof paper.

Cranberry Jam. For The Turkey and Beyond.

Taken from Nigella Lawson's 'Feast',this is such an easy jam to make as cranberries are bursting with pectin so it sets so easily. I love to make it for the Christmas table as I am not keen on cranberry sauce. I doubled up the quantities as I wanted some to give as gifts. The jam is darker than it normally is because of this. Doing it again I would do it in two lots as the bright colour is lovely. Don't just use it for the turkey, although it is just perfect with that, it's lovely on toast or to use in baking and cooking when jam is called for. It's nice with other savoury dishes too such as lamb. Great with the Christmas left overs. Turkey and cranberry jam sandwiches. Lovely.

Cranberry jam

350gms/12oz cranberries

350gms/12oz caster sugar

Put a film of water in the bottom of a large saucepan and add the cranberries and sugar.

Stir patiently over a low heat to dissolve the sugar; this will take a little while. Turn up the heat and boil the pan rapidly until setting point is reached, about 7 minutes. (Alternatively it will have reached a jam-like consistency.)

Pour the jam into a sterilized jar (s) and seal immediately.

Makes approx 350 mls

Crab Apple Jelly

These gorgeous little crab apples were growing in my garden. The branches were laden almost to the ground with fruit. A severe gale one night had me scrambling early nest morning to pick them from the ground. My fingers were frozen and my hair full of twigs but it was worth it for these little beauties. I bought the tree several years ago but unfortunately I have forgotten the name of the variety. They were crying out to be made into crab apple jelly. I want to use the jelly for Christmas gifts as the colour is so seasonal. It's so easy to make. I managed to drip 5 lbs of fruit in a sieve lined with muslin so a jelly bag is not essential. A wash is all that is required. No peeling or removal of twigs is needed as it is all going to be strained anyway.


Crab apples, ( I had 5lbs)
1 lemon
Sugar, 1lb per pint of cooked apple juice
Cinnamon stick (optional) .


METHOD

To start with, rinse the apples and cut them into quarters. Don’t worry about peeling or coring as you will be straining the fruit later.
Put the apples together with the halved lemon and cinnamon stick into a large saucepan, with a couple of inches of water in the bottom to stop them from sticking when you turn on the heat. You will need a large enough pan to hold TWICE the volume of the fruit and sugar. This is because to get the jam to set, you need to cook it at a “rolling boil”, which makes it double in volume.
Put the lid on tight and boil them to destruction – usually around 45 minutes to an hour is sufficient.
Now you need to strain the fruit. I did this by placing a large sieve lined with muslin over a bowl. I stacked the fruit carefully and then left overnight. You want to get every last drop of juice
Do NOT squeeze or you will end up with a cloudy final product – the aim is to get a completely clear apple juice. The lemon is not completely necessary but gives a nice zing, and makes sure that the juice is acidic to help the setting process.
Once you have your clear juice, put it back in the cleaned pan, and add 1lb of sugar per pint of juice that you have extracted.
Dissolve all the sugar over a gentle heat. You’ll be able to tell when it’s all dissolved if you use a wooden spoon as you can no longer feel a crunch at the bottom of the pan.
Crank up the heat and get the mixture boiling – you need to achieve a “rolling boil”, which means that it is actively boiling (ie more than a simmer) but not rising up the pan. If you can not get rid of the bubbles with stirring, but it’s not rising up the pan, then you are at the right point.
Test for a set after about 15 mins by placing a dribble of the jelly on a cold plate. If it wrinkles to the touch after a few minutes you are done. If not boil a few minutes longer and so on.

This recipe is so good for beginners due to the high pectin content in crab apples. Pectin is a naturally occurring sugar found in some fruit and vegetables, and acts as a gelling agent, in the presence of acids and sugar, to make jam set. With some fruits, the pectin content is very low so you have to mix n’ match, or use additional pectin to get the jam to set, but this crab apple recipe seems fairly idiot proof and sets well.

In the meantime, you need to prepare your jars ready for the jelly.
Wash them and sterilise by popping them in a warm oven. You need them warm for the hot jelly anyway

As soon as your jelly is at setting point, take it off the heat and ladle it into your waiting jars,
I got 1 1/2 pints of juice out of 5lbs fruit which gave me six 8oz jars

Strawberry Jam

It's taken me a long time to come round to making jam and various other preserves. Not because I was unused to it, quite the reverse in fact. I grew up in post war Britain. My Mum was the stay at home housewife of the 1950s. Food wasn't too plentiful yet. My Dad grew everything in the garden and his allotment. We wanted for nothing in the healthy food department. As happens there is always a glut of produce when you grow your own. No freezers back then so it had to be pickled, chutneyd jammed or dried to enjoy during the winter months when fruit and veg were not so readily available. No Tescos then if you fancied strawberries in December. The very thought would have raised a howl of laughter. I digress. My Mum made copious amounts of jam and various other preserves. She seemed to spend the summer and autumn bent over her cauldron, as I liked to think of it, making jam out of everything. Even marrows. How disgusting is that? Why my Dad grew them I don't know as nobody liked them so of course they were turned into jam. I think it was that that finally turned me against jam. I feel as if I spent my childhood swimming in the stuff. I didn't eat it for years. I tried some store bought stuff on occasion and it didn't impress. Then it all changed. I had some strawberries that were a little past their best. I didn't want to waste them. To my horror a light bulb went off in my head and I thought I'd make jam. I seem to be turning into my mother as the years pass. Oh what a treat I've been missing in those intervening years and so easy to make. My grandson loves strawberry jam and I refuse to fill him with nasties in the manufactured variety. Thank goodness I have realised I don't need to make the vast quantities produced in my childhood nor a cauldron either. Fresh jam smeared on fresh baked bread or toast. Simply delicious.

Soft berries such as strawberries or raspberries benefit from having the sugar sprinkled over them and left overnight. It helps to keep the fruit whole in the jam. I can't be bothered. I have a strange family anyway. They like their fruit smushed up in jam. I did try it once and it worked really well with the strawberries. Big whole strawberries in the jam. It was greeted with horror so back into the pan it went and had some treatment from the potato masher.
Strawberries are very low in pectin so they don't set too well. You can add lemon juice and faff about with granulated sugar and pray that it will set but I find it easier just buy jam sugar. It has added pectin. Makes life a lot less complicated. I'm all for the simple route.


You need 1 pound of sugar for every pound of fruit.
About half a dozen sterilised jam jars ( I do this in the oven)
A large saucepan (or a cauldron if you have one)
Put the fruit and the sugar in the pan.
Heat gently until all the sugar is dissolved stirring now and again to stop it catching
Rack up the heat and boil pretty furiously for about 15 mins.
To test for a set put a wee dribble of jam on a cold plate. If it wrinkles after a few minutes your done. If not boil for another few minutes and so on. You won't have any bother with the jam sugar.
To get rid of the scum stir in a knob of butter and stir it round.

Let it sit for a moment or two then pot up in your nice warm jars.

Add the juice of a lemon at the start if you can't get or don't want to use jam sugar.

I have added this picture to a contest on this blog Jugalbandi. This is a new thing for me. The topic is Red.

Cucumber,Ginger and Vanilla Jam

When Cucumber Jam was mentioned by Shyvas on a thread on Vi's Pantry, a foodie forum I subscribe to, I was intrigued. When I saw the recipe and realised it was Cucumber Ginger and Vanilla jam I was even more intrigued. It was crying to be made. I did and I am so glad I did. it is wonderful. I had no idea what to expect but this is a keeper. Shyvas suggested eating it with feta and that is exactly what I did on a nice thick slice of Brown Soda Bread. It belongs with cheese. I cannot rave about this enough. It is sweet but with the tongue tingling ginger through it and the hint of vanilla it is a taste experience not to be missed. You cannot believe what an wonderful combination of flavours it is until you have tried it. It's not difficult to make and it is very quick .

500gms Cucumber
80gms Ginger
1 Vanilla Pod
350gms jam Sugar

Weigh the sugar and put into a large saucepan
Cut the vanilla pod in two, de-seed and put pod and seeds into the sugar
Chop the cucumber into tiny cubes
Peel and cut the ginger into tiny pieces
Add both cucumber and ginger to the sugar and vanilla and mix well.
Leave for two hours
Bring to the boil stirring to dissolve the sugar.
Keep at a rolling boil for 7 minutes.
Pour into sterilised warm jars.

Note: If using granulated sugar it will take 15-20 minutes to reach a set.

Microwave Lemon Curd

For Easter I had it in my mind to make the Lemon Meringue cake from Feast. Last year I made this with shop bought lemon curd and I felt it spoiled this particular cake. I use lemon curd a lot in baking as well as slathering it on scones. I decided this year to make my own and I remembered Rita had given me a recipe for Lemon Curd made in the microwave. Until I tasted this I didn't realise how pathetic store bought lemon curd was although I was always aware it rather lacked the essential taste of lemon. Trust me once you have tasted this you will never want anything else but home made. Not a cheaper option but oh so very worth it. Simple and quick to make the result is the tangiest curd you have ever tasted. Not too solid making spreading a lot easier. Lovely on a piece of wheaten bread or a scone.

Microwave Lemon Curd

7-8 Lemons to yield 330mls/12fl oz juice
225gms/8ozs Butter
450gms/1lb Sugar
8 eggs well beaten

In a large glass bowl stir the sugar into the lemon juice.
Cut the butter into chunks and add to the bowl
Pass the beaten eggs through a sieve into the bowl discarding what is left in the sieve.
Microwave at one minute intervals stirring each time until the curd is fairly thick and glossy.
This sets more on cooling so don't be alarmed.

Yield Approx. 3 lbs/1.3Kgs

Notes

Microwave your lemons whole for 30 seconds to get maximum juice extraction.

Measure the lemon juice as you squeeze. A lot depends on the size of the lemons.

Lemon Curd keeps for weeks in the fridge