This time of year brings Seville oranges to the markets in Paris. For the past few years, I kept complaining they were hard to find since it's perhaps my favorite of all jams and jellies to make and eat. But lately, they've been everywhere. (See? It pays to complain. Either that, or a whole lot of French produce suppliers read my blog.) And I found myself busy making a lot of marmalade, which was a whole lot easier since I came up with a brand-new, revolutionary technique which I couldn't wait to share.
Since Seville oranges are rife with seeds, which makes slicing them difficult since you have to keep moving the seeds around with your slippery fingers, while trying to cut the oranges, then finding more, and fishing around deeper inside to extract more, plucking them out, etc...Each Seville orange has perhaps twenty to thirty inside.
So I thought, what if I was to squeeze the juice and seeds out first, strain them, then pour the juice back in? The seeds are precious commodities in jam-making, and get saved and used since they're so high in pectin. They're wrapped in a sack and cooked with the marmalade giving the marmalade gets a suave, jellied texture. And this simple method makes the whole process much easier.
You might be interested to know that Seville Orange Marmalade was created because of an error. Apparently an Englishwoman in 1700, the wife of a grocer, was stuck with some sour oranges that were bought cheaply from a boat that was carrying them from Seville. Since there was a storm, they wanted to get rid of their stock or oranges quickly, so the grocer bought them. But they were inedibly sour so his wife decided to try making jam from then, and viola!...Seville Orange Marmalade was invented.
Seville Orange MarmaladeTwo quarts
Adapted from Room For Dessert (HarperCollins)
I recently updated this recipe to include a pre-boiling of the orange pieces, simmering them in water until cooked through as some varieties of sour oranges tend to be resistant to cooking, and the pre-boiling ensures they'll be fully cooked.
6 Seville oranges (see Note)
1 navel orange
10 cups (2.5 liters) water
pinch of salt
8 cups (1.6 kg) sugar
1 tablespoon Scotch (optional)
1. Wash oranges and wipe them dry. Cut each Seville orange in half, crosswise around the equator. Set a non-reactive mesh strainer over a bowl and squeeze the orange halves to remove the seeds, assisting with your fingers to remove any stubborn ones tucked deep within.
2. Tie the seeds up in cheesecloth or muslin very securely.
3. Cut each rind into 3 pieces and use a sharp chef's knife to cut the rinds into slices or cubes as thin as possible. Each piece shouldn't be too large (no more than a centimeter, or 1/3-inch in length.) Cut the navel orange into similar-sized pieces.
4. In a large (10-12 quart/liter) stockpot, add the orange slices, seed pouch, water, and salt, as well as the juice from the Seville oranges from step #1. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer, and cook until the peels are translucent, about 20 to 30 minutes.(At this point, sometimes I'll remove it from the heat after cooking them and let the mixture stand overnight, to help the seeds release any additional pectin.)
5. Stir the sugar into the mixture and bring the mixture to a full boil again, then reduce heat to a gentle boil. Stir occasionally while cooking to make sure it does not burn on the bottom. Midway during cooking, remove the seed pouch and discard.
6. Continue cooking until it has reached the jelling point, about 220F degrees, if using a candy thermometer. To test the marmalade, turn off the heat and put a small amount on a plate that has been chilled in the freezer and briefly return it to the freezer. Check it in a few minutes; it should be slighty jelled and will wrinkle just a bit when you slide your finger through it. If not, continue to cook until it is.
7. Remove from heat, then stir in the Scotch (if using), and ladle the mixture into clean jars. Sometimes I bury a piece of vanilla bean in each jar. (Which is a great way to recycle previously-used or dried-out vanilla beans.)
I don't process my jams, since I store them in the refrigerator. But if you wish to preserve them by canning, you can read more about the process here.
Note: Sour or Seville oranges are called in French oranges amers and are available mid-winter in many other countries around the world as well.
David, I'd suggest getting your wide funnel from Weck Online. Rather a peculiar name but they stock canning stuff. www.weckonline.com. If you don't like the plastic ones Lakeland stocks a non-stick one, which is what I use and I like it a lot. www.lakeland.co.uk
The up side of not perfecting the jam making process is that friends can take pity and share their wares.... On toast with coffee....Yum!!!
I'm a HUGE marmalade lover. Really. This looks delicious.
And might I add that your photography is beautiful! WOW!
(not that it wasn't before, you know, I'm just saying you really are getting the most out of that camera, i can tell! ok I'll shut up now)
This post was really clever-- it makes me think it would be brilliant if you had a cooking show.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, Nan. The only problem Nan that I don't think I could do it all in '30 Minutes or Less'.
My mother, who lives in England, has the same problem finding wide-mouth funnels. On her trips to the States, she always picks up a few to give to her friends in England, who all have gardens and who all can jams and chutneys from the produce of said gardens--but can't find canning funnels for love or money.
My local supermarket here in the American hinterlands does not reliably stock cilantro or bulghur, the fish counter is a sad mockery of all the fish-cooking advice I've ever gotten, and the "gourmet" cheese display would make the good readers here weep--but it DOES have wide-mouth canning funnels! David, can I send you one?
marmalade, didn't love it until I moved to Japan.
A very nice marmalade indeed, with great photos, as Matt mentioned! Right on!
Got my funnel today at E. Dehillerin where they had to unearth it from some box stowed in the deep, dark recesses of Le Halles.
Funny, in this city of fine cuisine, it's easier to find 'adult novelties' than it is to find a funnel!
I love your blog more and more with every entry.
I recently had a marmalade assembly line in my kitchen. This time I attempted some blood orange marmalade. As I was waiting for the crucial moment to gel my phone rang and I made the mistake of answering it. While I was distracted by my mother and therefore was not stirring constantly, my marmalade scorched. Ack! I was so upset. I had no more blood oranges and had spent all that time preparing. Off the heat I stirred it a bit contemplating that I was going to have to throw it out, but I just couldn't. Then after I had stirred all the little burnt bits in to the mixture I tasted it and you know it didn't taste really burnt or bad, just sort of a deeper, flavour. I thought it just needed to be brightened up a bit. So a large glug of Grand Marnier went into it, cooked it again for a few minutes and it was done. I renamed it Caramelized Blood Orange with Grand Marnier Marmalade. The perfect gourmet name to tag onto a total mistake rectified. I was so proud of my save and thought you and your readers would appreciate.
I brought back some killer marmalade, most made with seville oranges, from a trip to Ireland last year [my fave was a Whiskey Marm. from Avoca] and having had some success with jam making had hoped to try my hand at marmalade. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find sevilles in my 'hood--San Francisco. Since you used to live [and cook] out here, do you know if that variety is available in these parts? I'm thinking it might just be a European thing and I'm SOL, but if you have any leads you'd care to share, I'd be most grateful.
Can, you use the same recipe for kumquats? My tree is bursting full and I'd like to harvest them before the birds, squirrels and 6 year old get to them.
Jinxie: Try Monterey Market in Berkeley. That's where I always got mine. (Elise at Simply Recipes is going to post her recipe using locally-grown Seville oranges, from Sacramento, shortly.)
Betty: I would imagine you could substitute kumquats, which will be a lot of slicing & seeding! Don't know the exact quantities you should use but let us know how it turns out.
Sandra: Ok...but will I get slapped if I do?
Oh, you're good. You're really good. Anyone who could get me this excited about making orange marmalade has to have som
Seville orange marmalade is also my favourite, particularly on toasted rye bread. Rose Grey and Ruth Roger's recipe for it (marmallata di arance siviglia), from 'River Cafe Cookbook Green', is a real winner. You boil the oranges whole, like Claudia Roden's orange cake - the whole house smells fabulous. Also... my mum makes great kumquat marmalade using her microwave, the colour is beautiful, it keeps well and is easy once you get past the chopping and de-seeding - I was really a bit surprised, although I shouldn't be, she is an excellent cook!
Looks great, I made some blood organge marmalade this weekend which turned out beautiful. However, after putting the jam in the jar, all the skin bits floated to the top.Any tips on how to get a nice homogenous distribution? Thank you!
Eva: Never had orange bits float to the top, since usually my marmalade is solid pieces of oranges from top to bottom. (Also, didn't your marmalade made with blood oranges turn brown? That often happens, so I don't use them.)
Try stirring the marmalade as it cools. Assuming that it's going to gel, they should be suspended once it cools.
An apocryphal marmalade story - but I love it!
When Mary Queen of Scots was in exile in Spain, she was suffering from a persistent sore throat. A Spanish physician prescribed a mixture of ground-up Seville oranges and honey. It worked well - and even better; it tasted great. She was so thrilled with the results, that she had large quantities cooked up and packed into large stoneware jars, which were marked "MA" for "Maria", "R" for "Regina", "Malada" for "Ill". These were shipped back to England when she returned. Courtiers got to taste this concoction, and of course anything that the Queen endorsed became a great favourite! Sadly, the "Marmalade" provided no throat protection against a sharp axe.
Another story...
Scottish wool was highly prized by textile makers in Spain. Ballast was required for the return sailings of the cargo ships. Since the raw wool was bulky, and took up more space than the desired trade items from Spain, they looked around for something worthless to balance the weight and bulk of the wool. Most city streets in Spain are lined with orange trees, valued for dense shade and the scent and beauty of their blossoms and fruit. When the ripe fruit falls to the ground, it costs money to shovel them for disposal.They provided the perfect ballast material! Faced with tons of this bitter, inedible fruit arriving at their ports, the thrifty and ingenious Scots found a use for it by making it into marmalade.
My own experience...
Living in Italy, where "Merangole" trees are used for decorative and shade purposes, I noticed that tourists would pick an orange, take one bite, and dash it to the ground in disgust. To me, they looked for all the world like Seville Oranges - and why not! My Italian neighbours were at first astounded, and then delighted, when I picked their oranges, made marmalade, and presented them with jars of it. It did not spark a marmalade industry in Nettuno, but the neighbours are still making and enjoying it, long after I returned to Canada. My other contribution to Italian cucina was Lemon Meringue Pie. Nice to know that I am long remembered for my "bite" and "sweetness"!
Marmalade is wonderful stuff for winter jamming in the kitchen. Having coaxed the produce manager at my local supermarket here in New Jersey into obtaining some I've been having a grand time playing variations on a theme. Seville orange marmalade with Beam Black Label, with apricots (dried, marinated before incorporation in the marmalade,) with cranberries, etc.
Sweet oranges make up into a sweet marmalade, one I find too bland and without the tang that Seville oranges have to offer. If that's all you can find, try using sweet oranges in combination with lemon to mimic that luscious sharp sweetness of Sevilles.
The name, Marmalade, comes, or so I understand, from the Portuguese for quince, marmelo. They were used for a stiff, sweet concoction (no connection to your Paris toy shop) similar to today's quince cheese. It would be served after dinner, as a digestif.
Enjoy your confiture. Yummy stuff.
Judy: Thanks for the tips on mix-ins for the Seville Orange Marmalade. The cranberries sound especially good.
I must correct you, though, when you say 'your Paris toy shop'. I was going with a friend for something for her, not me...(yes...really!)
Not that there's anything wrong with that, though...
I get my jollies from jammin'!
New to the marmalade home production business.
Finished batch one last evening. It has not set and I am
perplexed. The jars are not yet sealed; a rescue operation possible?
Elizabeth: You can cook it further until it gels, using the chilled-plate test method that I recommend, or a thermometer. The seeds are rife with pectin so if it hasn't set, perhaps it needs a bit of a nudge.
Tangellos make a great substitute for seville oranges. They're a hybrid of mandarin (also known as a tangerine) and grapefruit. They smell so fresh and sweet that I'm always surprised at the sour and slightly bitter flesh. I'm guessing the acidity level is on par with sevilles because I use a seville orange recipe and the marmalade is exceptional.
Yummmmmmmmmm
Hello David,
Wow; I can't thank you enough for this recipe! My son has a potted Calamondin orange tree (fruits are small, very fragrant, like tangerine, but flesh is very sour, peel is bitter) which gives us the beautiful smell of orange blossoms in the winter, and lives fine in a pot inside the house five months out of the year. The branches of the tree were heavily laden with about 200 fruit, which are quite small (about 40-50mm wide) with plenty of seeds for pectin. What to do with so many little oranges?? Marmalade, of course.
I had searched for a reasonable marmalade recipe, and came upon yours. I sliced each little orange in half, squished the seeds and juice into a bowl, sliced up the peel, then followed your recipe. It took a while, but oh.. my.. God, was it worth every minute. The flavor of this stuff is really unbelievable. Being of Scottish heritage (btw: the first records of Marmalade are from Dundee, where the legend is that, as previously mentioned, a ship from Spain ran ashore during a storm; a frugal and industrious Scots woman made jam out of all the oranges...), and having spent significant time eating marmalade in my hometown of Keith, I could not be happier with your recipe - and I've found a new way to love my son's Calamondin oranges.
Hey, David --
Your recipe seemed to work just fine for Carlyn, above. But I had 2 extra Seville oranges, & otherwise I followed the recipe's exact proportions. I thought 10 cups of water sounded pretty generous, and sure enough, my stockpot was mostly water (and juice) with orange bits floating on top. Nevertheless, I boiled the mixture and put it on a steady simmer.
After an hour (you didn't give any time guesstimates in the recipe, btw), I stuck a candy thermometer in the mix. Since the stuff had been boiling away for quite a while, the thermometer registered 220 degrees right away. But the orange had hardly begun to turn translucent. So I gave it another hour, at which point the orange looked about right, but it was still floating on top of about 8 cups of water.
I turned it off and gave up. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Caroline
Dear Caroline: I'm surprised the recipe didn't work for you, and you can see from the last photo what the finished marmalade looks like.
220F is a syrup stage, and the temperature that is commonly-used to denote when jam is done. So if there are 8 cups of water, rather than a thick sugar syrup in your pot when your thermometer reads that, there may be a fault with your thermometer.
David --
The candy thermometer is new and accurate (I checked it against boiling water), so I'm not sure what went wrong.
Thanks for the photo. If I come across some more Seville oranges on special, I'll try it again.
In the meantime, my husband put together your panforte ice-cream recipe with candied citrus peel I made last week (an orange-cookery experiment that was successful) and it is perfect. No single ingredient stands out; all the strong flavors (nuts, spices, citrus) go together nicely. Delicious!
Caroline
Hi David,
I am a little bit tardy in contributing but it is Seville orange season here now in Seville! I thought I would add a couple of things that might be helpful. First, the origin of the word marmelade is...mermelada the Spanish for jam or fruit preserve and, of course, originally Latin. Secondly, the oranges were indeed shipped back to Britain as ballast, but it was coal that came out (the coal was used to fuel the steam driven presses for the olive oil harvest that happily precedes the orange season by a few weeks). And last but not least, you might find that the orange rinds can be a bit tough if you add the sugar before they have softened. I cook the rinds and the pith etc., for two hours before adding the sugar. Give it a try this year!
With my best wishes,
Shuggie
David, I just moved to a retirement community in Arizona. In the public areas there are trees with funny-looking bumpy oranges, for anyone to pick. My neighbor told me they are very sour and only good for making marmalade. I don't think they are Seville oranges because they don't look like your picture. Do you know anything about them? Would they work in your recipe?
Two and half litres of water for the number of oranges you propose is FAR too much.
Heating for 30 minutes is FAR too short.
Result - a thin watery substance that wasted the oranges and sugar.
Reverted to the Waitrose recipe. Result - perfect
David: That's interesting, since I just made 6 jars of this again just yesterday, cooking the oranges for 20 minutes, and using that amount of water.
And they came out perfect, and I'm actually looking at my jars right now on my kitchen counter. But it's nice to know there are several different recipes out there.
Ruth: If they are sour oranges (Seville or Seville-type) you're lucky! Some sour oranges are smooth, and others are very pebbly-looking. I would take an example (with a few leaves) to your local agricultural cooperative extension, or perhaps a nursery, to make sure.
Hi David,
Being an adopted Sevilliaño, this might help many of your readers confusion about what constitutes a 'Seville' orange, it is any orange that has been allowed to revert to its wild ancestor (just like the crab apple or the sloe plum) so that any orange trees that have not been tended or grafted for many years will have the properties required to make a tangy marmalade, so if you are lucky enough to have streets lined with them, as we do here, go out and marmalade. A final note, the reason that it is more and more difficult to find Seville oranges in the green grocers these days is that the oranges are now being processed here (shredded, boiled and frozen) and sold to the predominantly British commercial Marmalade manufacturers. They are grown commercially in groves surrounding the city but the Gitanos have been given the right to harvest those in the city.
Best wishes,
Shuggie
David:
Thanks for the recipe! I'm spending a working vacation month in Jerez de la Frontera, my wife is traipsing around and writing her blog, me I'm officially working in the apt. we rented. Since I'm in the house (or garden) 8 hours a day and there are a whole bunch of Seville oranges in the square at the end of the calle.... well suffice to say that we are just about finished eating batch #1 or marmalade and since tomorrow will be raining, I'll be making batch #2. I was amazed at how much the pectin in the seeds sets up the marmalade, your recipe worked fine. As a side-note, lacking any cheesecloth, i tied the seeds up in a paper coffee-filter and that bundle inside another coffee-filter and no problems at all.
Thanks again,
Tom in Jerez
David,
Do you have an approximate weight for the oranges? I bought some Seville oranges today, and would like to try this recipe, but they are the largest ones I have ever seen. I'm thinking I may need only 3 or 4 of these large oranges.
Let me try asking this a different way David. Four of these oranges weigh 2 pounds 7 ounces--almost 2.5 pounds. Should I add 2 more to make this recipe, or is this enough (or more than enough)?
Matt: Thanks for your comments. I've never weighed my oranges so I can't advise the weight but almost all sour oranges I've come across (in California, Spain, and France) are roughly the same size—each orange I've used is about the size of an American baseball. You can likely adjust as necessary.
David, thank you for the response. These must be unusual then--they are about the size of softballs, if not a bit larger. I bought them at Whole Foods, but they had a whole range of sizes from these larger ones to small ones about the size of tangerines. The smaller ones are what I have been able to buy before, so I was surprised to see these.
Hello,
How would you change this recipe for blood orange? Also, I went to a church bazaar and there was a booth where a lady was selling champagne orange marmalade? Do you have any recipe for that? I gave it to my mother-in-law, and she said it was 'luscious'.
Kate: I've never used other oranges but it should work. You could likely try replacing some of the water with champagne, but can't advise how much (unless someone wants to send me a few bottles to "test" a recipe!)
Good luck~
David
Have been trying my hand at some marmalade, with reasonable success. But I seem to have one major problem ... how do I get the shreds to float evenly throughout the finished jars. Sometimes they float up and set at the top and sometimes at the bottom. I'm completely flummoxed by why they do this.
Thanks
Claire
Thanks, David and all,
Years ago I married an orange marmalade lover. Although not a fan myself, this dutiful wife (of 36 years now) perused the shelves for the perfect orange marmalade for my husband, reading labels and holding the glass jars up to the light to see how generous (or sparse) the jars contents were of the precious shredded or chopped rind. Several times I was approached by a store employee....."May I help you?" they would say. I must be a humorous sight holding those jars up. I have purchased jars from specialty stores, gourmet markets, country fairs and foreign food stores; only a few have "passed the test." Ten years ago, after many years of "taste-testing" to understand the nuances of my husband's passion, I became a fan.
When I am able to get ahold of Seville oranges, I will embark upon my first experience with making orange marmalade. (Though not with making jams or jellies.) Wish me luck.... and thanks for all the information.
Susan
Hi David,
This marmalade turned out beautifully. I cannot believe how good it looks and tastes; even my father, the picky man that he is, thought it was great. The only issue is that I don't know what to do with so much marmalade. Is it okay to freeze some?
Thanks,
H.
Hi David, I'm using your recipe now, the stove is on! One question though -- you say to remove the pouch halfway through, and then when the marmalade is done it should be removed again(!). Which is it? Thanks
Stefan: Halfway through is usually enough to release all the pectin from the seeds. Enjoy the jam!
A bit late, but maybe still useful. I get seville (sour) oranges at Mexican fruit and vegetable markets in Los Angeles. Naranja agria (spanish name) are used extensively in Yucatecan cooking. If there is a Mexican market in your area with a wide selection, it should include seville oranges. In the winter, of course.