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Carrot and Orange Marmalade
6 carrots 3 oranges 1 lemon Sugar Dice the carrots and cook them until they are tender, in as little water as possible. Cut the oranges in small pieces and add the juice and grated rind of the lemon. Measure the carrot and fruit, and add two-thirds as much sugar. Simmer the mixture until it is clear. Turn it into jelly glasses, and when it is cold, cover it with hot paraffin.
A soft, bright preserve that relies on the citrus for both flavor and set, since carrots bring neither pectin nor acid of their own. Two things need updating: how the sugar is measured, and how the finished jars are sealed.
- Skip the paraffinWax seals were standard in the 1920s and are no longer considered safe: the wax shrinks, cracks and lets mold and airborne spores into the jar, and carrot is a low-acid vegetable. Treat this as a refrigerator preserve, or freeze it in straight-sided containers, rather than storing it on a shelf.
- Sugar by volume, not weight"Measure the carrot and fruit, and add two-thirds as much sugar" means volume measured after cooking and chopping. Six medium carrots plus three oranges and a lemon give roughly 4 cups of solids, so about 2 2/3 cups sugar.
- The oranges"Cut the oranges in small pieces" probably means peel and all, in the marmalade tradition, though the recipe does not say so; only the lemon rind is specified. If you do use the peel, slice it thin and remove the seeds and any thick white pith, which turns the batch bitter.
- Jelly glassesThese held about a half-pint, or 8 fl oz. The yield depends on how far the mixture is reduced.
- "Until it is clear"Treat this as the set point: a spoonful chilled on a cold saucer should wrinkle when pushed (around 220F at sea level). The carrot dice will go translucent at about the same stage.
- Cook the carrots dry"As little water as possible" matters more than it sounds. Any extra liquid has to be boiled off later, and long boiling dulls the orange flavor and darkens the sugar.
- The lemon is structuralIts juice and rind add acid and pectin, though the oranges contribute both as well. Do not reduce it, and fresh lemon is preferable to bottled.