Orange Fritters
INGREDIENTS for dish for 6 persons. For the batter, lb. of flour, 1/2 oz. of butter, 1/2 saltspoonful of salt, ORANGE GRAVY. 2 eggs, milk, oranges, hot lard or clarified dripping. AVERAGE COST, 8d.
Make a nice light batter with the above proportion of flour, butter, salt, eggs and sufficient milk to make it the proper consistency; peel the oranges, remove as much of the white skin as possible, and divide each orange into eight pieces without breaking the thin skin, unless it be to remove the pips; dip each piece of orange in the batter. Have ready a pan of boiling lard or clarified dripping; drop in the oranges and fry them a delicate brown from 8 to 10 minutes. When done, lay them on a piece of blotting-paper before the fire, to drain away the greasy moisture, and dish them on a white d'oyley; sprinkle over them plenty of pounded sugar, and serve quickly.
TIME. -8 to 10 minutes to fry the fritters; 5 minutes to drain them.
SEASONABLE from November to May.
Orange Gravy (for Wildfowl, Widgeon, Teal, &c.). - INGREDIENTS for sufficient for 2 or 3 birds. pint of white stock, 1 small onion, 3 or 4 strips of lemon or orange peel, a few leaves of basil, if at hand, the juice of a Seville orange, or lemon, salt and pepper to taste, 1 glass of port wine. AVERAGE COST, 9d.
COST, 9d.
ORANGE MARMALADE. and, when nearly cold, put it into a mould previously wetted; and, when quite cold, turn it out on a dish and garnish to taste.
To insure this jelly being clear, the orange and lemon-juice should be well -strained and the isinglass or gelatine clarified , OPEN MOULD. before they are added to the other ingredients, and, to heighten the colour, a few drops of prepared cochineal may be added.
TIME.-5 minutes to boil without the juice; 1 minute after it is added.
SEASONABLE from November to May.
Orange Marmalade. I.-INGREDIENTS.-Equal weight of fine loaf sugar and Seville oranges; to 12 oranges allow 1 pint of water. AVERAGE COST, 6d. per lb.
Put the onion, cut in slices, into a stew-pot. pan with the stock, orange-peel and basil and let them simmer very gently for 1/4 hour, or rather longer should the gravy not taste sufficiently of the peel. Strain it off and add to the gravy the remaining ingredients; let the whole heat through, and, when on the point of boiling, serve very hot in a tureen which should have a cover to it.
TIME.-Altogether, hour.
A straightforward fruit fritter: orange segments in their membrane, jacketed in batter and deep-fried. The main things to sort out are the fat temperature and the frying time, which as printed will burn the batter.
- The flour quantity is missingThe ingredient line has lost its fraction and reads only "lb. of flour", and the milk is unquantified as well. The page gives no way to recover the figure, so work by eye: add milk to the flour until the batter coats the back of a spoon.
- Frying timeEight to ten minutes will blacken a thin fritter. At 180C/360F the batter sets and colours in about 3 to 4 minutes, turning once. The orange inside only needs to heat through.
- Fat and temperatureLard or clarified dripping both work and both take the heat well; a neutral frying oil is the modern substitute. Bring it to 180C/360F and fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter of a teaspoon, so half a saltspoonful is a scant pinch.
- Preparing the orangesThe point of dividing each orange into eight "without breaking the thin skin" is that the membrane holds the juice in during frying. Segments that split will leak and spit in the fat. Blot the pieces dry before dipping or the batter slides off.
- DrainingBlotting-paper before the fire means kitchen paper, or better a wire rack in a low oven at 120C/250F, which keeps the crust from steaming soft while you fry the rest.
- Pounded sugarSugar crushed fine in a mortar; caster sugar is the direct equivalent, and icing sugar gives a whiter finish.
- Quantity and servingThree to four oranges give 24 to 32 fritters, enough for six. They collapse quickly, so fry and serve in one movement rather than holding them.
Fritters of this kind are among the oldest sweet dishes in English cookery, batter-dipped fruit having appeared in recipe collections for centuries before Mrs Beeton set them down; apple was the usual choice, with orange a more expensive variation. The "seasonable from November to May" note is the real period detail: imported citrus reached British markets in winter and spring, Seville and sweet oranges arriving from Spain and Portugal, so oranges were a cold-weather luxury rather than a summer one. The instruction to drain on blotting-paper is a reminder that absorbent paper was a stationery item pressed into kitchen service long before purpose-made kitchen towel existed.