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ORANGE MARMALADE (Invalid Cookery)
Take the same proportion of bitter and sweet oranges that was recommended in the first "Orange Marmalade" recipe, and an equal weight of loaf sugar. Boil the rinds in two waters until they are quite soft, and preserve the liquid in which they were last boiled. Scrape the pulp out carefully, throw the white or inner skins of the oranges together with the pips into a basin of cold water, and let them infuse for an hour or two. Pound the rinds in a mortar; mix with them very gradually the pulp and juice, half the quantity of sugar which is to be used, and a quarter of a pint of liquid to each pound of pulp and juice. This liquid should consist of the strained water in which the pips were soaked and that in which the oranges were boiled. Simmer gently for twenty minutes, then add the remainder of the sugar, and boil again until the marmalade jellies. Time, about three-quarters of an hour to boil. Probable cost of Seville oranges, 5s. or 6s. per hundred.
A pounded, smooth-textured marmalade from the invalid-cookery pages, where the rind is softened in two waters and worked to a paste rather than left in shreds. The recipe leans on a earlier entry for its fruit proportions, so a little interpretation is needed before you start.
- The missing proportionThe "first Orange Marmalade recipe" is not reproduced here, so the bitter-to-sweet ratio is genuinely unknown from this page alone. Victorian marmalade recipes vary widely in their mix; work to a proportion weighted towards bitter (Seville) oranges and adjust to taste, keeping sugar equal to the weight of prepared fruit as the recipe directs.
- Loaf sugarLoaf sugar was refined white sugar sold in a cone and broken up as needed. Ordinary granulated white sugar is the direct equivalent; preserving sugar dissolves more cleanly if you have it.
- A quarter of a pintIn an imperial pint, a quarter is 5 fl oz, or a scant 2/3 US cup, per pound of pulp and juice. This is the same measure the period would call a gill.
- Why the pips are soakedThe pips and inner white pith are the richest pectin source, and the hour or two in cold water draws it out as a viscous liquid. Strain that water in and do not discard it, or the set will be noticeably weaker.
- Two waters for the rindsBoiling the rind in a first water that is thrown away removes some of the harshest bitterness; the second water is kept because it carries flavour and dissolved pectin. Sevilles need a good hour or more to go truly soft, and the rind must be tender before sugar goes anywhere near it, since sugar sets the peel and it will never soften afterwards.
- Pounding the rindA mortar gives a coarse, slightly fibrous paste. A food processor pulsed briefly does the same job; blitzing to a purée makes the finished preserve pasty rather than jelly-like.
- Testing the set"Boil until the marmalade jellies" means the setting point, 220F / 105C on a sugar thermometer, or a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer that wrinkles when pushed. The stated three-quarters of an hour is a guide only, as it depends on your pan and the water content.
- JarsFill hot, clean jars to the brim and seal at once. High-sugar, high-acid preserves keep well, but the jars should be heat-sterilised and the surface covered with no air gap.
- YieldRoughly speaking, 2 lb of prepared fruit and 2 lb of sugar give around 5 to 6 half-pound jars.
Marmalade of bitter Seville oranges was already a fixed British institution by the time Cassell's was compiled, the season for the fruit running only a few weeks in midwinter and household manuals timing their instructions to it. What sets this version apart is its placement under invalid cookery: sickroom diet in the nineteenth century favoured food that was smooth, easily swallowed and lightly stimulating to a poor appetite, which is why the peel here is pounded to a paste in a mortar. Citrus was also long thought mildly medicinal and cooling, a notion generally traced back to older humoral ideas about fruit as well as to the plain observation that oranges revived people who would eat nothing else. The costing at the end, five or six shillings a hundred for Sevilles, is a reminder that these books were written for a housekeeper buying fruit by the case.