lime-ginger melon marmalade

I'm calling this lime-ginger melon marmalade, instead of jam (as last time) because, while I liked the flavor of the jam (based on Jane Grigson't Fruit Book recipe), I didn't like how the chunks of melon became dense. This time, instead of cubing the melon, I julienned it (four pounds of it, this was a huge cantaloupe). This was in hope—and with success—that the strips would have more of a marmalade consistency instead of a cubes-in-syrup one.

This makes ten pints, and can easily be halved: 4 lbs julienned melon, about ¼-in. thick (your choice: Grigson specifies green-fleshed but I've always used orange-fleshed varieities), 7 oz. ground fresh ginger (I sliced it across the grain and then processed it in a food processor), 1 lb. limes, rind finely julienned and fruit set aside for later (lemon works too, but just use the zest; lime rinds are thin enough that the whole rind works), 4 lbs sugar.

Mix the sugar with the melon, add the lime and ginger, and let sit 6-8 hours or overnight in a non-reactive bowl (glass, ceramic, etc.).

This is what it looks like after sitting and turned into its cooking vessel (above).

Heat the fruit-sugar mixture, and add the reserved limes, tied up in cheesecloth. Cook, stirring frequently, until it reaches 220º (F) on a thermometer, then remove and press any liquid from the cores of the limes. Continue cooking, testing occasionally to see if it will set (place ½ tsp. on a chilled saucer, leave in freezer for two minutes: this will tell you if it is ready). I cooked this until it was around 224º (F).  Process in a hot-water bath for 15 minutes.

The strips of melon resulted in a wonderful texture, and the ginger and lime give it a wonderful kick. Perfect with a croissant.

blueberry-apricot preserves

After having thought that apricots were gone for the season, I found some at a farmers' market on Saturday. In my zeal, I purchased more than I'd eat in a week, so I deciced to make a jam with them and some delicious Michigan blueberries. Apricots and blueberries complement each other wonderfully here.

This is a basic jam recipe: I used 1 lb. apricots, ½ lb. blueberries, and 1 lb. sugar. I cooked this with the kernels of about half of the apricots, wrapped in cheesecloth for easy removal (break the pits by tapping them with a hammer whilst wrapped in a towel, as I did for this tart). I added the zest and juice of a lemon partway through. I cooked this until 220º (F), and once it would jell on a saucer that had been kept in the freezer, I removed the apricot kernels, ladled the preseves into jars, and processed them in a hot water bath for 12 minutes.

poached quinces

I am always amazed at the miracle of quinces: they start off completely inedible, bland in color and taste with a dreadful tough, spongy flesh and cooking for a few hours with sugar turns them a bright ruby color. These three quinces were cooked with a lemon, 1½ cups of sugar and a sliced knob of ginger.

grapefruit marmalade

Red grapefruit marmalade. Start with 5 lbs of grapefruit, slice away the rind and some of the pith and discarde the inner pith. Section the fruit, separating sections from seeds and membranes. Do the same with three lemons. Start cooking the sections with the seeds and membranes tied up in a square of cheesecloth. In another piece of cheesecloth, tie 3 cloves and 3 pods of cardamom. Add to pot. Add 3 lbs sugar.


Meanwhile, julienne the grapefruit and lemon skins.


Cook until it starts to thicken, maybe an hour or so. Have a few saucers in the freezer. Sterilize 8 or so one-pint jars.


Remove the pectin bag (the one with the membranes and seeds) as well as the spice bag. Squeeze the pectin bag very well, or -- and this is so much easier -- pass the contents through the finest disc of a food mill. Add the squeezed/strained pectin back into the pot. Bring back to a slow boil and test the marmalade on a saucer from the freezer to see if it sets. If it does, ladle into jars (with a sterilized ladle and funnel).


Cover jars, unscrew ball top one quarter turn and process in a hot water bath for five minutes. Remove, then very carefully loosen screw tops once lids pop (to ensure the lids, and not the screw caps, are keeping it closed. This guarantees a vacuum). Let sit for 12 hours or so to guarantee setting/cooling/vacuum sealing.

membrillo

With the leftover pulp from my quince gelée, I decided to make quince paste, a/k/a membrillo or cotignac d'Orléans. I passed the quince through a food mill, first coarse, then fine.


I added an equal weight of sugar, per Jane Grigson. This I cooked until "you will barely be able to push the spoon through the paste."


I spread this in a Pyrex 9x13 dish, 1cm thick, as Grigson suggests. Then, after those hours of cooking, comes hours of drying. Over eight hours, flipped thrice, at 170ºF, the membrillo dried.


And now it is packed in sugar, between parchment. All I need is Manchego!

grapefruit-hibiscus marmalade

Take six grapefruit. Remove the outer peels, leaving behind the pith.


Julienne the rind. This sounds arduous, but it's worth it. And less work that one might expect.

Take off the rest of the rind. Section the grapefruit, making sure to save the pith and seeds for the pectin bag. Do the same with one lemon. Measure the fruit. (I had two pounds). Tie the membranes and seeds in cheesecloth.


Cook the fruit, with the pectin bag and peels on top, for twenty minutes. (Add a splash of water if needed.) Then add an equal weight of the fruit (before rind) in sugar to the pot.


Add one half-cup of dried hibiscus flowers.


Cook on medium-high until it starts to thicken. Remove the pectin bag.


Squeeze out the thick pectin-filled goo — or press well in a conical strainer (less of a chance of burning yourself). Add that to the marmalade and cook until about 8º above boiling (220º unless you're at a high elevation).


And/or test by dropping onto a plate that has been in the freezer.


Place in sterilized jars. Process in a hot-water bath for 5 minutes.


And here it is. It's bracing, perfect for breakfast toast. My favorite marmalade yet.

quince preserves

Been on an obvious quince kick lately. And when it comes to fruit, I Jane Grigson's Fruit Book never lets me down. She suggests a quince jelly where one chops the less handsome fruit into small pieces and reserves the nicer quince for slicing.


This pot (above) is filled with chopped whole quinces, then the cores and skins of the nice quinces, and then finished with the elegant quince slices. I also added four star anise, a few allspice berries, a sliced lemon and a half vanilla pod.


Once poached and soft, they are removed.


The rest comes to a hard boil and is mashed up. Once very soft, it gets passed through jelly cloth. I used a food mill and then a conical strainer to extract more, giving a more jamlike texture.


That gets cooked with the sliced quince and 2¼ cups of sugar for each 2 cups of liquid (before adding the slices).


Cook until it jells when placed on a cold plate. This happened around 220º, similar to a marmalade.


I processed these in a hot water bath for six minutes (always use Putting Food By as a reference). Nice texture, softer than membrillo, but more coarse than jelly. Very good. And star anise was a good idea. It's subtle, but highlights the quince flavor.

blood orange marmalade

So a year ago when I tried this — and had great results — I didn't take any notes or leave any details in the blog post. So I had to start from scratch. And marmalade recipes vary greatly in method and proportions. Some have you slice the fruit and pick out the pips; June Taylor cuts the rind into triangles (which I tried and didn't like as much) and it appears that she candies the rind first; some have you juice the fruit and then chop the rind. Most have you hold the pips (and often membranes) for pectin (except the ones that use commercial pectin, which seems ridiculous). Worse, sugar ranges from about one-to-one to thrice(!) the quantity of fruit. Some measure the fruit in quantity, or weight, or juiced-and-peeled volume. It's overwhelming.

So I had a half dozen blood oranges that were really too bitter to eat. And then some lovely Meyer lemons to balance that out. I peeled the rind off of three Meyer lemons and juiced them: the rest I held back for the pectin bag. I cut the rind into strips about an eighth of an inch wide. I juiced the blood oranges very well, leaving very little membrane left inside. I cut those in the same manner. All the pips and membranes went into cheesecloth and was tied up (that's where most of the pectin is). I used about an equal weight of fruit and sugar.

I cooked the fruit and pectin bag for about twenty minutes to soften the fruit and then added the sugar. After fifteen minutes I took out the pectin sack and let it cool enough to squeeze out all that pectin. I cooked the marmalade until it jelled just enough on a saucer placed in the freezer, which was about 222ºF (and most recipes suggest 8º-10ºF above boiling). This was even more red than last time, and has great flavor. I might even use a tiny bit less sugar next time, but only as I like marmalade on the bitter side.

ginger-melon jam

I got two wonderful, striped, orange-fleshed (and still unidentified* — I should have taken a photo) melons from the CSA this week. I ate the first one in about twenty-four hours it was so good. Looking through Jane Grigson's Fruit Book, I found a recipe for Melon and Ginger Jam. A very simple recipe, adapted from hers:

For each 2lbs cubed, peeled, melon (about one melon):

• 2lbs sugar (I use organic in preserves, usually)
• Rind and juice of 3 lemons
• Ginger, grated fine (maybe 5-7 inches?) (Grigson uses preserved ginger)
  

The fruit sits overnight with the sugar at room temperature (first picture). I then added the ginger and lemon and cooked it until it started to set when cooled on a small dish. I mashed the fruit with a potato masher for a more even consistency (melon holds up quite well to cooking, which surprised me).

The lemon flavor mellows and mostly highlights the melon flavor and the ginger gives it a wonderful kick. I am very happy with the results.

2 lbs fruit yielded 3 pints (3 half-pint and six quarter-pint jars).

* n.b. (13 August) : The melons have been identified as "Early Queen".

currant jelly

I planted a red currant bush at my parents' house when I was a kid. Naturally, its most fruitful time has been since I've no longer been there. My parents dropped off about two pounds, so I made jelly (referring to Jane Grigson's Fruit Book as well as the preserving manual Putting Food By) :

Ingredients: just equal parts (weight) currants and sugar.

Grigson says to boil hard, then boil for 8 minutes. Sounds vague. I do like that she leaves the fruit whole (even suggests not taking out stalks) and then straining it. Putting Food By suggests making currants juice, then making jelly. That seemed to troublesome. But they direct one to boil until 8ºF above boiling.

I boiled the currants and sugar until they were at 220ºF, whisking at one point to make sure that the fruit was all broken. I strained it through a sieve and got 5 ½ pint jars. [n.b.: hot water bath for 6 mins.] It's tart and deep, deep red.

sweet.

I've been enjoying the cookbook Breakfast•Lunch•Tea, a cookbook companion to Rose Carrarini's Rose Bakery in Paris. Her biscuits (cookies) that I've made have been nicely not to sweet, which is refreshing. (I made a bunch of the gingerbread biscuits around the holidays). This is her lemon cake. It's a pound cake of sorts, but not quite. I halved the recipe and put it in kougelhopf mold:

125 g. butter / 100 g. sugar / 2 eggs / ½t. vanilla / juice of ½ a lemon (I used a whole meyer lemon, since it's a little smaller) / zest of one lemon / ½ rounded t. baking powder / ¼ t. salt / 25 g. ground almonds / 140 g. AP flour.

The butter and sugar get creamed, the eggs beat in, then the vanilla and lemon juice and zest. the dry ingredients are folded in and it gets bakes for 25-30 minutes at 350ºF.

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And last night I made blood-orange meyer lemon marmalade. I found both fruits on sale and organic so it seemed like I needed to find a great use for those rinds. It was really great for breakfast, on toast.