With half the oranges left over from this little venture into flavouring gin, I made some orange jelly marmalade. Not impressed – sorry, I like bits to chew on!
Still a kilo and a half of oranges to go – I’d heard of carrot marmalade, but never thought to give it a go. Google gave me The World Carrot Museum; good on carrots and I like the idea of the spices … but that is not how to make marmalade.
My version, “cobbling together” what was available, using up whatever fruit I had.
Ingredients
- 1.5kg Seville oranges (without the zest – used for gin)
- 2 lemons
- 4 litres of water
- 1 kg carrots, peeled and grated
- 450g/1lb of sugar per pint of extracted juice
- and I borrowed the spice idea from here
- 1 tsp each of allspice, cinnamon stick, and cloves, ground fine
Method
- Peel the lemon thinly – slice very thinly and pop into a pot. Add any other citrus peel you may have – I added the zest of a lime, and thinly sliced peel from a couple of sweet oranges. Cover with about 1.5 litres of the water, and set to boil gently for a couple of hours until very tender. Add grated carrots and spices after about an hour and a quarter.
- Pop the orange and lemon fruits into a large pan with 2.5 litres of the water, and set to boil for about 2 hours.
- Drain the boiled fruit overnight through clean muslin or a tea cloth. Next day, squeeze out as much of the liquid (and so the pectin). Add the boiled peel and carrot. Measure out the liquid – for each pint of juice, add 450g or 1lb of sugar.
- Put clean jars into the oven at 110C/225F/Gas Mark ¼ for about 10 minutes.
- Heat the marmalade gently, stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved.
- Bring to the boil in batches enough for 3-4 jars – following the techniques, tweaks, and timing for Seville Orange Marmalade.
Gavin cooks 