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Marmalade, Orange, Transparent
Squeeze out all the juice from a dozen oranges, or from twelve China and twelve Seville. Strain, steep the pulp after the juice has been expressed, in a little water, rinse it well in it, and pour the water through a muslin with the rest of the juice. Boil together with a pound and a half of sugar, clarified, to each pint of juice. Skim and boil for about twelve or fifteen minutes. The rind of a Seville orange, rubbed off on a few lumps of sugar, will improve the flavour of marmalade.
This is marmalade in its older, jelly sense: no shred of peel, just clarified orange juice boiled to a clear set. It behaves like a soft jelly rather than the chunky preserve the word now suggests.
- The hinge: pectinAlmost all the pectin in citrus sits in the peel and pith, which this recipe discards. Twelve to fifteen minutes of boiling will give a syrup or a very loose jelly at best. Cooks who want it to set need either bitter-orange peel and pips tied in muslin and simmered with the juice, or added pectin.
- China orangesAn eighteenth- and nineteenth-century name for the ordinary sweet orange, so called because the sweet type reached Europe from China. Any sweet eating orange stands in; the version using twelve of each simply balances sweet juice against bitter.
- Seville orangesBitter oranges, in British shops only for a few weeks in January and February. They are what gives marmalade its edge. Out of season, sweet orange juice sharpened with lemon juice is the usual substitute, though the flavour is flatter.
- Clarified sugarPeriod sugar carried impurities and was dissolved in water, boiled and skimmed, sometimes with egg white, before use. Modern granulated sugar needs none of this: dissolve it in the juice over low heat before bringing it to the boil.
- The proportionA pound and a half of sugar to each pint of juice is about 680 g to 570 ml, a high ratio even by preserving standards. A dozen oranges yield roughly a pint and a half of juice, so expect something over two pounds of sugar in total.
- Rinsing the pulpSteeping the squeezed pulp in a little water and straining it recovers juice trapped in the membranes. Use as little water as will wet the pulp, or the extra liquid lengthens the boil and darkens the colour.
- Rubbing the rind on sugarDragging a sugar lump over the skin of a Seville orange strips the oil from the zest into the sugar. A microplane grater does the same job faster; add the zest oil late so it is not driven off by boiling.
- Skimming and clarity"Transparent" is the whole point here, so skim the foam persistently and do not stir once the sugar has dissolved. A hard rolling boil clouds the jelly.
- Yield and keepingAround three to four half-pint jars. The recipe gives no sealing instruction; treat it as a refrigerator preserve, or follow current water-bath canning guidance for jams if it is to be stored on a shelf.
The word comes to English through Portuguese marmelada, a stiff quince paste (marmelo is quince), and only later attached itself to citrus. By the time Cassell's dictionary appeared in the 1870s, orange marmalade had become firmly British and firmly a breakfast food, with the shred-heavy Dundee style sold widely out of Scotland during the nineteenth century. This "transparent" version belongs to an older and more genteel line of preserving, closer to a jelly, in which the peel is treated as a flavouring to be rubbed off on sugar rather than an ingredient to be eaten. Seville oranges arrived in Britain in a short winter glut, which may be part of why nineteenth-century cookbooks often group their marmalade recipes together.