Recently, my local greengrocers had a glut of oranges that needed using up. With a few on the turn, they weren’t able to sell them at their normal price (which is also cheap, might I add, defying the myth that living in Sweden is ‘expensive’). I was able to get a bag of at least 15 oranges for the measly sum of 5kr (43p) and only 3 of them were duds!
Needing to use this citrusy surplus up, I got my thinking cap (and my apron!) on and made use of them. Making a marmalade instantly came to mind, so the next question was, what to pair with it? As I didn’t want a boring old orange marmalade. Why, of course gin! I used some gin from producers Gower Gin Co , from my home-city of Swansea, South Wales. The resulting product is a punchy, citrusy marmalade that’s great spread on toast (has to be good bread, though), swirled through porridge, or gone full-circle and made into a cocktail. The recipe below makes one big pot of the stuff, but feel free to double, even triple the recipe, you wont regret it!
To make you’ll need:
- 6 oranges, (Seville oranges work best)
- 1 lemon
- 1 full kettle of water (mine can hold 1.2 litres of water)
- 600g golden granulated sugar
- 2 shots of gin, I used Gower Gin Co’s Gŵyr Gin
To start, cut all (but two) of the oranges and the lemon in half and juice into the a large pan, using a sieve to collect the seeds. Once you’ve done this, take out the seeds with a spoon and scoop out any flesh that had been collected by the sieve. Tip this into the pan. The rinds of all of these oranges and lemons are vital for the marmalade, so the next step is to cut them up and add them to the pan. Here’s where you can personalise the preserve to your liking, if you like it fine, cut it fine, but if you like it chunky, like I do, roughly chop up the peel. Add the water to the pan from a recently boiled kettle. It isn’t necessary, but I feel it speeds up the boiling process. Turn the hob to a medium-high heat. Add in the sugar and the remaining two oranges. Stir. You want to keep it to a rolling boil. Cook for 15 minutes. The reason I added in the two oranges in whole, is to give the conserve more body. A trick implemented by the makes of ‘whole orange squash’. After 15 minutes the fruits should be squidgy and soft. Remove and place into a mixing bowl. With a hand blender, give it a few pulses. What it should give is a very thick pureé, full of zesty goodness. Remove the pips with a spoon before pouring back into the pan. Cook for a further 30-40 minutes, giving it the ‘plate test’ every 10 minutes. The ‘plate test’ is if you drop a bit of the mixture onto a chilled plate/ saucer, it should start setting, forming a skin. You can test this by poking with your finger. If 40 minutes doesn’t do it, keep cooking and checking until it does.
When it finally passes the test, take it off the heat and leave for a few minutes. This is because we want to keep as much of the gin’s boozy punch as possible. After a few minutes stir in the gin and pour into a sterilised jar. Place the lid on and leave to cool to room temperature before placing in the fridge (if you pre-emptively place it in the fridge it can mess with the internal thermostat of the fridge). It’ll set up even thicker in the fridge over night. Good things come to those that wait 😉
Enjoy!
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