Home › The Principles of Cookery › ORANGE JELLY (another way)
ORANGE JELLY (another way)
Put the strained juice of four Seville oranges, and the thin rind of one, into an enamelled saucepan with a pint of water and eight sweet oranges--freed entirely from the rind and white pith, and cut into slices a quarter of an inch in thickness--and the pips of all the oranges. Simmer very gently for half an hour, then strain the liquid until it is quite clear. Weigh this, boil it for five minutes, put with it its weight in good loaf sugar, and boil again until it jellies. Put it into jars, cover it in the usual way, and store in a cool dry place. Time, altogether, about one hour. Probable cost of Seville oranges, 1s. per dozen.
A Victorian bitter-orange jelly: essentially a marmalade with all the peel strained out. The whole thing turns on pectin from the pips and on boiling to a true set.
- Keep the pipsThey are the only meaningful pectin in the pot, along with the membranes of the sliced sweet oranges. Simmering them with the fruit is what makes the jelly set; tie them in muslin if you would rather not fish them out of the strainer.
- Seville orangesBitter or sour oranges, in season only from late December through February in most markets. Frozen juice or frozen whole fruit works; ordinary oranges plus a couple of lemons will give acidity but a much duller flavour.
- Enamelled saucepanThe instruction is about avoiding reactive metal, not about the enamel itself. Stainless steel is fine; untinned copper, aluminium and cast iron are not, as the acid will pick up a metallic taste.
- Loaf sugarHard refined sugar broken from a cone, the purest available at the time. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent. Do not substitute jam sugar with added pectin here, since the sugar quantity is already matched to the liquid by weight.
- Weight for weightWeigh the strained juice, then add the same weight of sugar. An imperial pint of liquid is about 20 oz; the yield of strained liquid will vary with the size and juiciness of the fruit and how much reduces in the half-hour simmer, so weigh it rather than assuming a figure.
- Strain, do not squeezeFor a clear jelly the liquid has to drip through a jelly bag or several layers of scalded muslin under its own weight. Pressing or wringing the bag pushes pulp through and gives a cloudy set.
- "Until it jellies"Use a thermometer: 220F/105C at sea level is setting point. Failing that, the cold-saucer test, with the pan off the heat while you wait for the drop to wrinkle.
- Covering and storage"In the usual way" would have meant something like a paper or waxed disc on the surface and a cover tied down over it, relying on the sugar alone. Current practice is hot jelly into sterilised jars, then a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes, and refrigeration once opened.
- YieldAbout three to four half-pint jars, depending on how much you reduce it. The cost note, 1s. a dozen for Seville oranges, dates the entry rather than helping you shop.
Seville oranges reach Britain in a short midwinter window and have done for centuries; too sour to eat, they were bought by the dozen in January and turned into marmalade and jelly. This recipe is the refined end of that tradition: all but a little of the peel and pith strained away, leaving a clear jelly, with the thin rind of a single orange the only peel that survives, there for aroma. Cassell's prints it among a run of variations on the same seasonal fruit -- the title itself says "another way". The technique of weighing the strained juice and matching it with sugar predates any understanding of pectin chemistry, but it works for the same reason modern jelly making does: bitter oranges are high in both acid and pectin. Most of a citrus fruit's pectin is in the peel and white pith, which this recipe removes, so the pips and the membranes of the sliced fruit are doing the work here.