In this blog I wish to give some Tasty, Healthy and Easy recipes... Easy to make as well as easy on the pocket. Hence I call them THE recipes. Hope some people will find them useful.
MARMALADE
I got the original recipe more than 45 years ago from a Scottish astronomer ( guess my age!) and over the years I made some minor changes. The original recipe requires Seville oranges which are firm, bright orange in colour and quite sour or tart. Here it is.
The ingredients.
Fresh oranges and sugar. Weigh the oranges and take sugar in double the weight of oranges.
The method
Cut the oranges into halves and cook them in a little water in pressure cooker till soft. .
Save the water around the fruit and chop the oranges into small thin pieces; throw away only the seeds at this point. While cooking, the pectin in the seeds has come into the water.
Mix the sugar, chopped oranges and the saved water in a large thick cooking pot ( of stainless steel ) and then cook on fairly high heat, stirring all the time. Warning : The mixture will froth up and may try to spill over.
Now, at this stage, Marmalade of two oranges takes 10 to 15 minutes' cooking before it is ready. Stop cooking when mixture is fairly thick.
Isn't it easy?
Seville oranges, however are not available everywhere and also they are seasonal. We can use the Jaffa, Malta, Kenoo or even Nagpur oranges in stead but then we have to add some lemon juice. One large lemon for 2 oranges is fine. One can make marmalade of any citrus fruit, Mosambi, Papanas, Grape fruit etc. Even thick skinned lemons or the little bright Naringa or Hajara oranges normally used decorative plants, will make good marmalade but they are more sour so we need about 3 times the weight of sugar for those fruits. The colour of the marmalade comes from the skin of the fruit so greenish oranges will make greenish marmalade.
So, the ingredients are e.g.
500 gm oranges
1 kg sugar
juice of one large lemon
Caution
The difficult thing is to know when to stop cooking the mixture of sugar and fruit. Overcooked, sugar will caramelise and it will be too thick. Undercooked, it will be too runny and may soon get mould on it. Also it will thicken as it cools. So one has to learn when to stop cooking. Drop a spoonful on a cold plate to test. If it thickens well, having a film on top, it is done. I drop the mixture from a large spoon back into the cooking pan and watch how it falls down. If the last 2 drops seem reluctant to fall, it is done. Stop cooking. Also it is safer to undercook than overcook. When cold, if it still runny, one can gently cook more. But overcooked, it cant be rescued.
I believe in multitask method in working and use a 5 lt pressure cooker. So I often cook 2-3 oranges in the lower covered container and rice or potatoes in the upper container. If there is no time to continue with marmalade recipe, one can store cooked fruit in the fridge for 1-2 days. The fruits are covered and so dont lose flavour and rice or potatoes dont spoil the fruit flavour. At the beginning, in 1967 I did not have a stainless steel pressure cooker and as I was told, used to cook the oranges directly in the aluminium cooker. Each time I did that, the pressure cooker came out very clean. Then I realised that all that dark covering of the cooker got cleaned with the acid in the oranges, but then where did it go? In the fruit mixture of course! .. :-( .. Lesson.. cook the fruit only in stainless steel container.
Some people think that using the whole orange rind may make the marmalade bitter. But the marmalade IS supposed to be a little bitter. It is a good idea to start with only one orange at first. It may weigh 200 gms or so. Do take double the weight of sugar and juice of half large or one medium lemon and proceed. You will get one jarful of the marmalade. If you think that it is too bitter, then increase sugar to two and half times the weight of the fruit and also increase lemon juice. but DO use the whole orange rind, white pith and all. The skin of the fruit gives body, colour and most of the flavour to the marmalade. At most, discard the central fiber if it stays tough after cooking.
MARMALADE
I got the original recipe more than 45 years ago from a Scottish astronomer ( guess my age!) and over the years I made some minor changes. The original recipe requires Seville oranges which are firm, bright orange in colour and quite sour or tart. Here it is.
The ingredients.
Fresh oranges and sugar. Weigh the oranges and take sugar in double the weight of oranges.
The method
Cut the oranges into halves and cook them in a little water in pressure cooker till soft. .
Save the water around the fruit and chop the oranges into small thin pieces; throw away only the seeds at this point. While cooking, the pectin in the seeds has come into the water.
Mix the sugar, chopped oranges and the saved water in a large thick cooking pot ( of stainless steel ) and then cook on fairly high heat, stirring all the time. Warning : The mixture will froth up and may try to spill over.
Now, at this stage, Marmalade of two oranges takes 10 to 15 minutes' cooking before it is ready. Stop cooking when mixture is fairly thick.
Isn't it easy?
Seville oranges, however are not available everywhere and also they are seasonal. We can use the Jaffa, Malta, Kenoo or even Nagpur oranges in stead but then we have to add some lemon juice. One large lemon for 2 oranges is fine. One can make marmalade of any citrus fruit, Mosambi, Papanas, Grape fruit etc. Even thick skinned lemons or the little bright Naringa or Hajara oranges normally used decorative plants, will make good marmalade but they are more sour so we need about 3 times the weight of sugar for those fruits. The colour of the marmalade comes from the skin of the fruit so greenish oranges will make greenish marmalade.
So, the ingredients are e.g.
500 gm oranges
1 kg sugar
juice of one large lemon
Caution
The difficult thing is to know when to stop cooking the mixture of sugar and fruit. Overcooked, sugar will caramelise and it will be too thick. Undercooked, it will be too runny and may soon get mould on it. Also it will thicken as it cools. So one has to learn when to stop cooking. Drop a spoonful on a cold plate to test. If it thickens well, having a film on top, it is done. I drop the mixture from a large spoon back into the cooking pan and watch how it falls down. If the last 2 drops seem reluctant to fall, it is done. Stop cooking. Also it is safer to undercook than overcook. When cold, if it still runny, one can gently cook more. But overcooked, it cant be rescued.
I believe in multitask method in working and use a 5 lt pressure cooker. So I often cook 2-3 oranges in the lower covered container and rice or potatoes in the upper container. If there is no time to continue with marmalade recipe, one can store cooked fruit in the fridge for 1-2 days. The fruits are covered and so dont lose flavour and rice or potatoes dont spoil the fruit flavour. At the beginning, in 1967 I did not have a stainless steel pressure cooker and as I was told, used to cook the oranges directly in the aluminium cooker. Each time I did that, the pressure cooker came out very clean. Then I realised that all that dark covering of the cooker got cleaned with the acid in the oranges, but then where did it go? In the fruit mixture of course! .. :-( .. Lesson.. cook the fruit only in stainless steel container.
Some people think that using the whole orange rind may make the marmalade bitter. But the marmalade IS supposed to be a little bitter. It is a good idea to start with only one orange at first. It may weigh 200 gms or so. Do take double the weight of sugar and juice of half large or one medium lemon and proceed. You will get one jarful of the marmalade. If you think that it is too bitter, then increase sugar to two and half times the weight of the fruit and also increase lemon juice. but DO use the whole orange rind, white pith and all. The skin of the fruit gives body, colour and most of the flavour to the marmalade. At most, discard the central fiber if it stays tough after cooking.
I have been lucky enough to actually taste this recently. So if you need "taster ratings" it gets 5 stars.
ReplyDelete