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Marmalade, Orange, Grated
Grate the outer rind of twenty oranges and one lemon, scoop out the inside, and carefully remove the seeds; bruise the pulp with about a quarter of a pint of water, through a sieve. Weight the orange-pulp, and allow a pound of sugar to a pound of the fruit. Boil them together with the grated rind, until the latter is tender. As the oranges are grated, these gratings should be thrown into water to prevent their becoming a mass, and afterwards added with the other items, when ready for boiling. Time, half an hour to boil.
A rindless-strip marmalade: the peel is grated rather than shredded, so it disappears into the preserve instead of floating in it. The method is sound, but the quantities are British imperial and the set is left entirely to the cook's judgement.
- Quantities and yieldTwenty oranges might be somewhere around 5-7 lb of fruit, depending on size; the sieved pulp is what gets weighed, and the sugar is matched to that weight, not to the whole fruit. Yield will vary accordingly, so judge jar numbers by what is in the pan. Scale down if you have never made marmalade before, since a full pan of this size is slow to reach setting point.
- The quarter pint of waterAn imperial pint is 20 fl oz, so a quarter pint is 5 fl oz, a scant two-thirds of a cup. It is there only to loosen the pulp enough to push through the sieve.
- Which orangesThe recipe does not name a variety, but bitter Seville oranges, in season January and February, are the usual choice for marmalade and carry more pectin than sweet ones. Sweet navels or Valencias give a milder, less bitter preserve and may need extra lemon to set.
- Why the gratings go into waterThe recipe says to throw the gratings into water as you go, to prevent their becoming a mass; grated zest is oily and clumps if left to sit dry. It is added with everything else when the pan is ready for boiling.
- Sieving the pulpPushing the pulp through a sieve removes membrane and stray seeds but also removes much of the pectin they hold. Tie the seeds and coarse membrane in a muslin bag, boil it with the fruit, and lift it out before jarring.
- Half an hour is a guide, not a ruleBoiling time depends on your pan and your fruit. Work to the set instead: 220F on a sugar thermometer, or a spoonful that wrinkles on a chilled saucer. Note that this recipe boils the rind together with the pulp and sugar until the rind is tender, rather than softening the peel first; peel toughens once sugar is added, so watch that it is genuinely tender before you push on to the set.
- JarsThe recipe gives no instructions for potting. Use clean jars heated in a 250F oven, fill to a quarter inch of the rim, and either water-bath the sealed jars for ten minutes or keep the finished marmalade in the refrigerator.
Marmalade began as a firm quince paste — the word comes from Portuguese marmelada, from marmelo, quince — and the shift to citrus is generally traced to Britain, where bitter Seville oranges arrived in a short winter glut and had to be dealt with all at once. By the time Cassell's dictionary was compiled in the 1870s, orange marmalade was a fixed part of the British breakfast table and cookery books carried several versions side by side, among them this grated kind, which suited households that wanted the flavour of peel without the chew. The book's habit of listing variants under one heading reflects its purpose as a reference work rather than a narrative cookbook — a cook looked up "Marmalade" and chose the form the family preferred.