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Orange Jelly
To five ripe sweet oranges add one tangerine or mandarin, with rind and pulp of seventh orange. Slice fruit whole, removing seeds as far as possible. Add one-half pint cold water and cook until juice and water have simmered down to one scant half-pint, when strain. Heat again and when boiling add heaping half-pint of sugar to each scant halfpint of juice.
A small-batch citrus jelly built entirely on the fruit itself — no added pectin, no gelatin, and the whole sliced orange, rind and all, doing the setting work. The proportions are given by volume, which needs translating.
- Pints and half-pintsThese are US liquid measures: a half-pint is one cup, eight fluid ounces. A "heaping half-pint" of sugar is roughly a cup and a bit, about 8 oz by weight. The ratio is very close to the standard one-to-one jelly proportion.
- The hinge: rind and pith are the pectinOrange juice alone will not gel. The set comes from cooking the sliced whole fruit — peel, pith and membrane — so do not be tempted to peel the oranges or to juice them instead. The seventh orange contributes its rind for the same reason.
- Yield is tinyReducing to a scant cup of strained juice and adding a cup of sugar gives you roughly one small jar, about 8 to 10 fl oz. Scale up if you want more than a breakfast's worth; the method holds.
- Judging the setThe original gives no second cooking time. After the sugar dissolves, boil hard and test: jelly generally sets around 220F at sea level, or when a spoonful wrinkles on a chilled plate. Undercooked citrus jelly tends to stay syrupy, though a soft set will sometimes firm up over a day or two.
- Strain, do not pressPressing the pulp through the cloth pushes fine solids into the liquid and clouds the finished jelly. Let it drip. Cloudiness is cosmetic, but this recipe is aiming at a clear jelly rather than a marmalade.
- Tangerine or mandarinIt is there for aroma rather than volume — mandarins are more fragrant and less acidic than sweet oranges. A clementine or satsuma does the same job. If your oranges are very sweet, a squeeze of lemon sharpens the flavour and helps the set.
- StorageNo sealing or processing is described. Treat it as a refrigerator jelly and use within a few weeks, or follow a current tested water-bath canning procedure if you want it shelf-stable.
Mandarins and tangerines reached Western markets in the course of the nineteenth century and were valued more for their perfume than their bulk, which is roughly the role assigned to the single fruit here.