I've always fancied the idea of making marmalade at home. For the longest time, I had concluded that you couldn't make marmalade without using pectin and although that's an easily available ingredient, having absolutely no knowledge on how pectin works I never bothered to give it a try. I'm sure it's not hard to learn, it's just like making friends with gelatin, but knowing how long it took me to understand gelatin I had no interest in familiarising myself with pectin. If you haven't yet made peace with gelatin this post might help.
Coming back to the marmalade. I found a recipe that makes marmalade without pectin. Halleluiah!!!!! Although I didn't feel too confident at first to give it a try, this has now become one of my favourite recipes. I've tweaked it with every subsequent attempt but more or else the process has remained the same. A good marmalade is easy to make, it just needs a bit of time. Ok, a bit is an understatement, it needs time. About 3 hours at the least, buuuuut, don't give up on it yet. The prep takes a little time, but once you've got the mix in the pot ready, you can leave it on the stove simmering, almost without any or very little supervision. It's that simple. Although you can use a sugar thermometer to know how long the mixture should cook, you can make it without one too. I've explained the process in the recipe.
Marmalade needs just a few ingredients to make, most of which you will have stored in your kitchen, apart from the oranges maybe. I have almost always used Kinnow oranges to make marmalade, and they seem the perfect fruit for this recipe. Fruit, sugar, lime and water. That's all you need to make marmalade. Once you have a jar of this in your fridge, there are tons of other recipes you can use it in. Orange chicken, Orange and mustard pork chops anyone?
Let's get to making this bottle of marmalade already.
Homemade Marmalade :
Ingredients:
1 kg Kinnow oranges
Juice of 3 limes
3 cups of sugar
1 litre of water.
Method :
1. Start with juicing the oranges into a container. Don't throw away any of the flesh or pith, instead put it all in a muslin cloth. Keep the orange skins aside.
2. Once you have juiced all the oranges, use a sharp spoon or a knife and scoop out all the flesh and pith and add it to the stuff you already have in the muslin cloth. See the picture below. All the stuff in the bowl goes into the muslin cloth.
4. Once you've scooped out all the flesh from the oranges, slice the skin of the oranges as thinly as you can. This definitely takes time, but really there's no way of skipping it.
5. Into a large vessel, pour the juice you've collected, 1 litre of water, and the juice of the limes and the finely sliced orange skin. Gather all the flesh, pith and the rest in the muslin cloth, tie the cloth tight with a string and put the tied up muslin cloth in the pot with the rest of the ingredients.
6. Put the mixture on the stove. Once it comes to a boil, simmer it down and let it cook for about 2 hours. Well, you are now done with all the hard work this recipe takes.
7. You don't need to watch the mixture all the while but just check on it every 20 minutes or so. Give it a little stir if you think it needs one.
8. At the end of 2 hours, the liquid in the vessel would have reduced to around half its quantity. Using a wooden spoon, remove the tied up muslin cloth out of the mixture. Place it on a large strainer over the pot. Using a wooden spoon, squeeze out all the juices from the cloth into the pot, the bag still tied. You can then discard the contents of the bag.
9. With the reduced liquid still on the pot, add the sugar. Stir it for about 5 minutes, then simmer it down and let it keep cooking.
10. It'll take about an hour for the marmalade to reach the right consistency. It'll have a syrup consistency but look still a bit thin. To know if the marmalade is ready, take a spoon of mixture in a steel bowl or plate and toss it in the fridge for about a minute. When you take it out, it will look thickened and not flow around easily if you tilt the bowl. If you're using a sugar thermometer, you can turn off the heat when the temperature reaches a 105 C (220 F)
11. Once the marmalade is ready, turn off the heat and let the mixture cool for about 5 mins. Then pour the marmalade into sterile glass jars to store.
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