Seville orange season
Jan. 18th, 2011 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThere were Seville oranges in the greengrocer's at the weekend. The season never lasts long, so I bought some, thinking of zesty orange puddings for cold grey days.
On Saturday, when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
desperance came visiting, I dug out a recipe I'd cut out of a magazine long ago, and made Seville and blood orange tart, reducing the quantities to about two thirds of those given, and using some of the Tropicana Sanguinello that D. had brought us for the blood orage juice. Both this recipe and a similar one I found on the net specified an almost cakey pastry, made with egg: another time I'd use a more standard, crisper, sweet shortcrust. And if I could get real blood oranges, that'd be good, too, and worth trying the finishing touch of slicing a blood orange thinly and laying it on top of the almost-cooked filling. But it was fine without (and the quantities served the three of us on Saturday, and five to Sunday lunch).
I made marmalade with the rest, rather nervously, since I'm never confident that preserves will set. Since it seems to have worked, I'm noting down what I did, while I can still remember. The basic recipe came from a very old pressure cooker cookbook (not only older than my new pressure cooker, but older than my old one, too) but it's vague about times, and I messed about with it.
I had a generous pound of oranges left (including the shell of an orange whose juice I had used; but I discarded the ones of which I had also used the zest). I cut these into quarters, and placed them in the pressure cooker with water to (just) cover. It seemed like too much water, especially since I usually reduce the quantity of liquid when adapting recipes for the pressure cooker - but since it was a pressure cooker recipe to begin with, I thought I'd give it a try. Another time, I'd reduce it a bit. I boiled this for ten minutes at pressure, as per instructions, which made the oranges very soft and easy to handle. When they were cool, I removed the pips and cut the oranges into small chunks. I added a chunk of root ginger, finely chopped, about an ounce of black treacle (all there was in the tin), the last lump of stem ginger and the syrup that remained in the jar, and about 12 ounces of fructose, and brought it back to the boil until the sugar was dissolved. Then I turned it off, put a lid on it, and went and did something else. I don't know if this two-stage process helped at all, but it doesn't seem to have done any harm.
This morning when we got in from the pool I turned the heat on again, and let it boil quite hard while we had breakfast. After about half an hour I tried testing it by dropping a small amount onto a plate, but it didn't seem to have gelled. On the other hand, the fruit element was thickening nicely, and by the time I had a couple of jars ready, the marmalade was ready to go into them.
durham_rambler tested it tonight, on a toasted muffin, and approved.
On Saturday, when
desperance came visiting, I dug out a recipe I'd cut out of a magazine long ago, and made Seville and blood orange tart, reducing the quantities to about two thirds of those given, and using some of the Tropicana Sanguinello that D. had brought us for the blood orage juice. Both this recipe and a similar one I found on the net specified an almost cakey pastry, made with egg: another time I'd use a more standard, crisper, sweet shortcrust. And if I could get real blood oranges, that'd be good, too, and worth trying the finishing touch of slicing a blood orange thinly and laying it on top of the almost-cooked filling. But it was fine without (and the quantities served the three of us on Saturday, and five to Sunday lunch).I made marmalade with the rest, rather nervously, since I'm never confident that preserves will set. Since it seems to have worked, I'm noting down what I did, while I can still remember. The basic recipe came from a very old pressure cooker cookbook (not only older than my new pressure cooker, but older than my old one, too) but it's vague about times, and I messed about with it.
I had a generous pound of oranges left (including the shell of an orange whose juice I had used; but I discarded the ones of which I had also used the zest). I cut these into quarters, and placed them in the pressure cooker with water to (just) cover. It seemed like too much water, especially since I usually reduce the quantity of liquid when adapting recipes for the pressure cooker - but since it was a pressure cooker recipe to begin with, I thought I'd give it a try. Another time, I'd reduce it a bit. I boiled this for ten minutes at pressure, as per instructions, which made the oranges very soft and easy to handle. When they were cool, I removed the pips and cut the oranges into small chunks. I added a chunk of root ginger, finely chopped, about an ounce of black treacle (all there was in the tin), the last lump of stem ginger and the syrup that remained in the jar, and about 12 ounces of fructose, and brought it back to the boil until the sugar was dissolved. Then I turned it off, put a lid on it, and went and did something else. I don't know if this two-stage process helped at all, but it doesn't seem to have done any harm.
This morning when we got in from the pool I turned the heat on again, and let it boil quite hard while we had breakfast. After about half an hour I tried testing it by dropping a small amount onto a plate, but it didn't seem to have gelled. On the other hand, the fruit element was thickening nicely, and by the time I had a couple of jars ready, the marmalade was ready to go into them.
durham_rambler tested it tonight, on a toasted muffin, and approved.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 10:34 pm (UTC)Nine
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 10:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 10:09 am (UTC)Your orange / ginger / honey chicken sounds good, though (I can't always get good chicken, but that's a whole 'nother can of worms).
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 10:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 10:06 am (UTC)