Very fine cut marmalade
It seems to come around so quickly, but it’s that time of year again to make the marmalade. The event is triggered by a call from our neighbour to tell us that the greengrocer has got in this year’s consignment of Seville oranges. Spanish Seville oranges are the preferred oranges for marmalade making as they have more pectin in than sweet oranges, so they’re perfect for preserves. You can make marmalade out of normal oranges, but you would have to add a lot more pectin (from lemons) or accept runnier marmalade.
We use Delia’s Traditional Seville Orange Marmalade recipe, with a slight tweak. We substitute 1lb of granulated sugar with 1lb of dark brown soft sugar, which gives the marmalade a much richer colour and flavour – I’m not a fan of marmalade so I’ll have to take Simon’s word on this one. For the last two years we’ve followed Delia’s preparation notes, spending an eternity cutting the orange peel into thin slices by hand. However, this year we tried something new.
Our neighbour collects (his wife would say hoards) all kinds of antique gadgets and implements. Usually these are agricultural implements, which he buys and reconditions, and occasionally sells. One such gadget is a “Magic” marmalade cutter, which is designed to slice the orange peel. They use it to make their marmalade and suggested we give it a try. It’s a very simple device, dating back from c.1870 when these types of cast iron time-saving gadgets were all the rage in kitchens. It simply clamps to a table and with the aid of wooden plunger you place orange quarters (minus juice and pips) inside it and move the cutting blade backwards and forwards. It gives a very fine cut, and makes a bit of mess, but is a lot less messy and time consuming than doing it all by hand. So in less than half the usual time we had the marmalade prepped. The finished result has yet to be sampled, but given the time it took to make it, even if it’s not quite as nice as hand-cut marmalade, it will be a gadget we’ll be borrowing again next year.