February is the time of the year to make marmalade as the new season of citrus fruit is in the shops. As well as using the traditional Seville oranges, marmalade can be made with limes, grapefruit or lemons, or any combination of the above.

I was inspired to make this recipe because I still have a bag of limes in the freezer, left over from a cheap box full I got at a car boot sale last spring. You can easily freeze all citrus fruit and use them to make marmalade later in the year if you wish.

This recipe is adapted from the marvelously utilitarian Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables, which although it looks like someone knocked it up on a photocopier is actually a mine of useful recipes and information.

See here for the Lime and Orange Marmalade recipe.

Recipe Costs

£1.92 750 g limes (about 12)
£2 750g seville oranges (about 10)
£2.56 2.75 kg granulated sugar
3 litres water
£6.48 Total

about £1.44 per kg of marmalade (about 60% of the cost of similar at tesco )

The fruit is halved and after squeezing out the juice the pips and membranes removed, I find a sharp edged spoon useful for this. The limes are a lot tougher than the Seville oranges and consequently had quite a bit of membrane left attached.

I put all the juice and insides into a sieve over the preserving pan, so that they are easily separated.

Once drained the membrane, pith and pips are put in a muslin bag and added to the pan, along with the chopped peel.

 Chopping the peel is actually quit a quick job, not half as time consuming as removing the insides. I've gone for a medium shread as I quite like a bit of bite on my toast.

The peel, juice and muslin bag are simmered for several hours (with the lid on) until the peel is soft.

After the muslin bag has done it's job helping to release all of the pectin contained in the membrane, pith and pips it is removed, I clip it to the handle with a clothes peg to allow it to cool before attempting to squeeze all the liquid out.

Sugar is added and mixed until dissolved, I always love the contrast of white sugar against the fruit.

The marmalade is then boiled until it reaches setting point, this took about 20 minutes, although will be different depending on how juicy your fruit was. With marmalade it helps to let it cool down slightly before potting into jars, this ensures the peel is evenly distributed and doesn't all sink to the bottom.
The small bubbles in this jar are probably due to it being a bit cool when poured.

The best thing about marmalade is you can eat it straight away, I'm enjoying the combination of different sized peel, the lime is a bit tougher than the orange which makes for a nice contrast.

Recipe Timings

1 hour preparing fruit
2 hours simmering
20 mins boiling
15 mins potting

Taste Test

I was concerned the taste of the limes would be lost, but they come through well giving this marmalade a fresher taste than if I'd just used Seville oranges.

My sister is an expert maker of pickles and preserves, and made a large batch of red onion marmalade with balsamic vinegar for consumption with the mountains of cheese at her recent wedding.

While she couldn't quite remember the exact recipe, it was similar to this red onion marmalade recipe. I would highly recommend it as an alternative to using brown onions.

She also designed and made some lovely labels for the onion marmalade and two other chutneys served on the day, she shows how to make these labels in this blog post.

The matching jars looked great on the tables at the wedding, you can find similar jars here.

About the only thing thriving in our garden at the moment, apart from a few slowly swelling squashes, are the leeks. It set me thinking about the possibilities of preserving them.

Not being able to find any recipes that weren't for something more like a relish, that would only last a few days in the fridge, I posted some queries on the several forums.
This raised some interesting thoughts:

TwoSheds on growfruitandveg.co.uk thought that the end result would be slimy.
Stupo74 on vegetable-gardens.co.uk found a welsh leek chutney for sale. Zigzag at allotments4all.co.uk made the very good point that there is really no need to preserve leeks as they last in the ground so long.

I thought I better take this through to it's conclusion and try out a recipe, just to see if it was possible, although I was pretty won over by zigzag's point.

Having recently made onion marmalade, I reasoned that since leeks aren't dissimilar to onions a variation would on this recipe would be a good start.

See here for the leek marmalade recipe.

Recipe Costs

£1.19 600g leeks (equivalent cost, mine were free)
£0.40 250ml vinegar (cider or white wine)
£ 0.42 450g granulated sugar
£0.79 3 sprigs of rosemary (equivalent cost, mine were free)
£2.80 Total (£0.82 without buying the leeks and rosemary )
£5.60 per kg of marmalade (£1.64 per kg without buying the leeks and rosemary - 17.5% of the cost of equivalent at chefontherun)

In order to minimise any excessive sliminess I chopped the leeks quite thinly.

The sugar is dissolved in the vinegar...

... and then 3 sprigs of rosemary added in a muslin bag. I had decided that leek and rosemary might be a combination worth exploring, reminiscent of roast dinners and a leek and rosemary pizza I had at pizza express about 20 years ago.

The marmalade only needed simmering for about an hour and a half before it was thick enough to pot up in steralised jars.

The recipe made about 500g of dark marmalade.
The leeks didn't break down much during the cooking, but went some translucent and some retained their green colour, so it looked quite interesting.

Recipe Timings

15 mins preparation
1.5 hours simmering
15 mins potting

Taste Test

Sweet,with a  slight hint of woodiness from the rosemary. The leek taste comes through, so definitely a different preserve to onion marmalade.
The problem I have with this preserve is (as predicted) the texture of the leeks, not actually slimy, but quite fibrous. This means that the occasional bit needs a good chew, and whilst doing so squeaks between your teeth.
On balance I would recommend that onion marmalade was probably a better use of the basic ingredients.

 

I'm a bit unsure about Onion marmalade, not the taste or concept, just the naming of it. In my mind a marmalade is a fruit preserve, made from citrus fruit. However, fashion has invented a version using onions, which I guess tends to be sweeter and more jam like than an onion chutney, so I was tempted into trying it out using some of the onions still laid out in the greenhouse.

I tried to keep the recipe simple and not go down the 'slow caramalised heritage variety red and white onion marmalade with single estate vintage balsamic vinegar' route. I did succumb to the addition of caraway seeds, as I'd never seen these used in a preserve before.

The recipe I used was adapted from the one at the chutney recipes blog.

See here for the onion marmalade recipe.

Recipe Costs

£0.89 1.2kg onions (equivalent cost, mine were free)
£0.02 3 tbsp salt
£0.79 500ml vinegar (cider or white wine)
£ 0.84 900g granulated sugar
£0.46 1 1/2 tsp cloves
£0.25 tsp caraway seeds
£3.25 Total (£2.29 without buying the onions)
£2.70 per kg of marmalade (£1.90 per kg without buying the onions - 17.5% of the cost of equivalent at confit direct)

The brown onions were chopped reasonably finely, a bit of a chore as my homegrown ones tend to bring on floods of tears, the sort where you have to leave the room and stagger around waving your hands in front of your face. These were salted for a hour, then rinsed.

Plain granulated sugar, and cider vinegar, heated gently until the sugar is dissolved. I find digital scales really useful for accurately weighing out ingredients.

Cloves are tied in a piece of muslin, the recipe suggests that rosemary can be added instead of caraway seeds, I'd be tempted to put this in the muslin as well. This is then simmered in the sugar and vinegar mixture to start the flavours infusing.

 Seeds and onions are added to the mixture, and simmered until thick.

The marmalade was put into hot, steralised jars after about three hour, in hindsight this was probably 30 minutes too long, as some setting occurred in the jars.

Recipe Timings

15 mins preparation
1 hour sitting
3 hours simmering
15 mins potting

Taste Test

Sweet,with a not too strong taste of onions, there's a slight hint of warmth from the cloves and caraway.

An exciting few days - making marmalade for the first time, something I've always fancied doing but never got round to. I think as it was I probably left it a bit late, luckily the local supermarket had bags of Seville oranges.
I promptly bought several bags and left them in a bowl for a while.

Researching recipes threw up a quandary, whether to use the 'whole fruit method' as recommended by Mary Cadogan on the BBC Good Food website, or to go with the 'slice the peel before simmering' version from my trusted "Good Housekeeping" Cookery Book.
In the end the second won out, purely because it was late in the afternoon and I didn't want to hang around waiting for oranges to cool before slicing them.

See here for the marmalade recipe.

Recipe Costs

£3.90 2kg Seville oranges
£0.60 2 Lemons
£2.51 2.7kg sugar
£7.01 Total
£1.55 per kg of Marmalade

First task was to juice the oranges and remove the pips and membranes, I microwaved the fruit for 30 seconds first (a good trick when juicing lemons) then after juicing scooped out the pulp with a cheap metal spoon (the cheaper the spoon the sharper the edge). I found a few cuts on my hands which I'd forgotten were there.

 

The pips and membranes went in the muslin, and the sliced peel was added to the water and juice along with the juice of two lemons (I froze the lemon peel, I'm sure it'll come in useful).
I was concerned that the slicing would take a long time, so went for a medium shred, but in the end in only took 10 minutes, thanks to a lovely sharp new knife I'd got for Christmas.

After boiling for several hours, reducing the liquid by half, I left the preserving pan on the top of the stove overnight. One of the recipes I'd read recommended this, as otherwise the whole process can take a whole day.
It was a glorious smell to come down to in the morning.

I'm always surprised at how much sugar you need to put in, but it's soon forgotten once it dissolves into a fragrant, deep coloured, sticky gloop.

Reaching setting point took about an hour, I fear I may have overcooked it slightly, I only reached 210 degrees C on the thermometer rather than the recommended 221, but didn't dare push it any further. The saucer test indicated I was ready to put it in jars, and the finished marmalade set fine. I feel I may need to rely less on the thermometer in the future.

As a treat I added a tablespoon of whisky to several of the small jars and stirred it in well. Opinion varies about when to add this, but as I only wanted it in a few jars it was easier to add at the end (although I can see it may affect the consistency) rather than while cooking. Also I couldn't see the point of losing the alcohol.

Recipe Timings

1.5 hrs Preparation
0.5 hr Potting

2 hr first cooking
1hr second cooking

Taste Test

As suspected the marmalade was slightly on the thick side, but still fine for spreading.
It's a lovely dark colour and less sweet (more tangy) than some you might get commercially.