Home › Preserving › Rhubarb and Orange Marmalade
Rhubarb and Orange Marmalade
Take six oranges, two lemons, and two pounds of rhubarb. Wash and wipe the oranges and lemons, cut each in lengthwise quarters, and the quarters in exceedingly thin slices, discarding the seeds. Weigh the prepared fruit and to each pound add three pints of cold water. Set aside for twenty-four hours. Let simmer until the rind is very tender, - it will take five or six hours, - then set aside until the next day. If the rhubarb be young and tender, the skin may be retained, - otherwise remove it. Cut the stalks in half-inch pieces, add to the prepared orange and lemon, and get the weight of the whole mixture. Let cook until it thickens slightly on a cold dish, then store in glasses as jelly is stored. The marmalade will stiffen, on cooling, and care must be taken that it be not overcooked.
A slow, two-day citrus marmalade with rhubarb standing in for part of the fruit. The original assumes the reader knows the preserver's standing rule about sugar, and never states it outright.
- The missing sugarTwice the recipe tells you to weigh the fruit and never says what to do with the figure. The usual period convention for marmalade is roughly equal weights: about a pound of sugar for each pound weighed, stirred in after the final weighing of the fruit-and-rhubarb mixture and before the last cooking. Without sugar in that range the marmalade is unlikely to set or keep.
- Water is not a typoThree pints per pound of sliced citrus is deliberate; depending on the size of the fruit, six oranges and two lemons may yield something like two to three pounds prepared, so roughly six to nine pints of water in all. The long soak and the five- or six-hour simmer extract pectin from peel and pith, and much of that water boils away. Use a wide pan with plenty of capacity.
- The 24-hour soakStanding the full twenty-four hours in cold water softens the peel and starts pectin extraction, so the long gentle simmer can bring the rind to full tenderness. Do not shorten it; sugar added to firm peel tends to toughen the rind, and it will not soften afterwards.
- Rhubarb goes in lateRhubarb collapses in minutes. It joins the already-tender citrus and needs only enough cooking to break down and reach setting point, not another long simmer.
- Rhubarb leavesUse stalks only. The leaves contain oxalic acid in quantity and are not food; trim and discard them before weighing.
- "Thickens slightly on a cold dish"This is the plate test, and it is the hinge of the recipe. Chill a saucer, drop on a spoonful, and look for a skin that wrinkles when pushed; roughly 220-222F on a thermometer at sea level. The author's warning about overcooking is real — rhubarb marmalade sets much harder cold than it looks hot.
- "Stored as jelly is stored"At the time that meant hot glasses sealed with melted paraffin, which is no longer recommended. Fill clean hot half-pint jars, leave a quarter inch of headspace, and process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath, or refrigerate and eat within a month.
- YieldYield depends on the size of the fruit and how far the mixture is reduced; expect several half-pint jars.
Marmalade in English usage began as a stiff quince paste -- the word comes through French from Portuguese marmelada, from marmelo, quince -- and shifted to mean a citrus preserve as Seville oranges became a reliable winter import in Britain. Rhubarb is acidic and low in pectin, and is commonly paired with a pectin-rich fruit. The two-day method, with its cold soak and long slow simmer of the peel before any sugar goes in, is consistent with preserving practice of the period.