By St. Patrick’s Day, only five days remained until I saw Little Z again. I was rapidly running out of time to indulge her request for decent spreadable kumquat preserves.
Time seemed too short to sort through my canning and preserving books for an appropriate recipe. Besides, I thought that I had already done this when I found the recipe for preserved kumquats. Therefore, I started by logging into my Eat Your Books account and searching for orange marmalade recipes in my indexed books and websites. Two intriguing recipes came up: Cara Cara Orange Marmalade and Blood Orange Beaujolais Marmalade. I love both Cara Cara oranges (they make a fabulous orange liqueur) and blood oranges (they make my Dad’s Sicilian salad). Both recipes read very similarly because they were both from the Serious Eats website and written by the same contributor. One used herbal tea as its liquid and the other used red wine. One used honey for additional flavor, while the other just used more sugar. In both cases, the mixture of the citrus rind and citrus puree (exactly five cups) was equivalent to the amount of sweetener (also five cups), which is the standard jam formula.
Since my goal was to create a marmalade from my two pounds of kumquats, I had to think about how the peculiarities of each recipe would complement the kumquats. In the end, I decided to use the Cara Cara Orange Marmalade recipe with the herbal tea and the honey as the base for my kumquat marmalade. However, I was so intrigued by the blood orange recipe that I made a special trip out to the fancy grocery store to see if they still had blood oranges. (I already had a bottle of Beaujolais in my cellar, and all the other necessary ingredients somewhere in my kitchen). If they did have blood oranges, I would also buy another flat of four-ounce jars so that I could make both recipes.
After I acquired blood oranges, four-ounce jars, and back up Cara Caras, I did something unusual when I got home. I asked the magic device nearest to my kitchen to play The Waterboys to entertain me while I was prepping the kitchen and making the jam. I had phrases of a specific song running through my head ever since I had heard the song played by an Irish duo at the orchard the day before. The magic device had a few hiccups at first, but it played precisely what I wanted after I looked up the name of the exact album in iTunes.
Adapting the Cara Cara recipe to use kumquats was very easy. The need to scrub the fruit to get the cleanest possible peel didn’t change. Rather than coarsely chopping the rind of the fruit, I tossed the whole kumquats into my mini food processor and pulsed until they were mush. It took about three rounds of processing to get approximately four cups of mush into my cast iron jam-making pot. I followed the recipe and mixed that with approximately eighteen ounces of brewed blood orange tea, which was blended at a local coffee shop. I let that mixture simmer covered for ten minutes to soften the rinds. Since I knew that I would need five cups of fruit mush to make the jam, I pureed one and a half peeled Cara Cara oranges to supplement the mush in the pot. (I ate the remaining half orange, and it was so good!)
Once the ten-minute simmer was complete, I was shocked to discover that the mixture was rife with seeds. I had only eaten kumquats whole, so I paid no mind to their seeds. In fact, I had forgotten that they actually had seeds. I decided that would be a thought project during the next round of simmering. So, as directed by the recipe, I stirred the pot thoroughly, ignored the seeds, mixed in the Cara Cara puree, covered the pot, and set the timer for another fifteen minutes. During that time, I measured out the one cup of honey (which was the better part of a one-pound jar) and the four cups of white granulated sugar. I didn’t want to lose sugar by measuring it in the same measuring cup as the fruit mush.
My options for seed removal turned out to be very limited. My first thought was to run the mixture through a food mill. That wouldn’t work because it would either remove or pulverize the chunks of peel. I could pour the mixture through a very fine sieve, but that would also remove the chunks of peel. And it would be so tedious to pick out the seeds from the mixture left in the strainer. I could hope that the mixture separated during the fifteen-minute simmer so that I could skim the seeds off the surface. But that was unlikely. With all the scenarios exhausted, I decided to leave the seeds in the marmalade and just warn my friends about them. They should be really easy to identify and pick out once the marmalade was spread on something.
Things moved very quickly after the fifteen-minute timer chirped. First, I measured the fruit mixture. After carefully measuring four cups of molten lava into a bowl, I guessed that what remained at the bottom of the pot was less than one cup, so I just dumped all the fruit mixture back into the pot. I measured the pectin into the mush, skipping the butter, and stirred until that had dissolved. The sugar went in next, followed by the honey. And that was it. I stirred fairly constantly until the mixture reached a rolling boil. Then I counted to sixty (which took more or less one minute) and attached my digital thermometer to the side of the pot. 218F, two degrees short of the target temperature. It took another five minutes or so for the temperature to stop bouncing between 216F and 219F, and to settle at 220F. That was my cue to shut off the heat and move the sterilized jars next to the stove so that they would be easy to fill with the super heated mush.
By the time that The Waterboys album ended, I was already ladling super hot jam into the sterilized jars. I had my magic device start The Long Black Veil to keep me in a good mood as I worked through the tedium of filling the four-ounce jars, wiping down the top edges, setting the lids, and screwing down the bands. That process had to be repeated for each of the individual jars. I had so many prepared jars that it took three rounds in the giant spaghetti pot to water process all of them. Since there was still some of the album left, I left the kitchen for my work space to text with Little Z about the marmalade, the upcoming trip, and the possibility of future trips.
I had a lot of interesting stuff going on during this recipe trial. This was the first time that I had seriously adapted a canning recipe to suit my needs. Typically, I slavishly follow the recipe instructions in hopes that I’ll have a decent result. This time, I confidently used my creativity and my jam-making experience to make the substitutions that I needed to do in order to use up the two pounds of kumquats that had been sitting on my kitchen counter. And I used my knowledge from reading all the geeky parts of the cookbooks to know that I didn’t need to add water or more puree to make exactly five cups of mush as emphasized in the recipe. Of course, I tried some of the jam that was leftover in the pot once it cooled. It was quite good! I wasn’t sure how much it tasted of kumquat, but at least the fruit would no longer continue to spoil on my counter!
This was also the first time that I set up my iPad in the kitchen to facilitate working from an online recipe. That was so much more convenient than trying to work from my iPhone or running back and forth to my workspace to check the recipe on my laptop. Because my iPad was in an Otter Box, I felt much better about introducing it into the kitchen. It was much better protected against sink splashes, sticky fingers, and possible crashes than my laptop. And occupied a smaller footprint on my counter. It was so convenient to be able to just cross the kitchen and have access to a readable copy of the recipe! I’m definitely trying that trick again.
Finally, this was the first time that I used my magic device to indulge my musical cravings. I knew that I could get it to play albums that I had previously purchased on iTunes, but I was completely unaware that it could use my subscription service to search for random stuff that I felt like listening to. I usually either listen to a radio station from TuneIn or my previously purchased albums. So having new and interesting music to work to was a real treat!
All in all, the St. Patrick’s Day marmalade project was quite the success! Now to find people to share all those jars with…
In Case You Were Wondering…
Preserved kumquats actually are significantly different than kumquat preserves.
Preserved kumquats are whole kumquats boiled in a sugar syrup and then water processed canned. That is supposed to keep the kumquats from spoiling so that you can enjoy them longer than fresh kumquats, which often get green mold on them after a week or two. Preserved kumquats should be enjoyed just like fresh kumquats, even though they will be a little softer and sweeter.
Kumquat preserves include jellies, jams, and marmalades made from kumquats. In addition to a ton of sugar, pectin is a key ingredient in making kumquat jellies, jams, and marmalades. Pectin is what makes the stuff thicken or set or even jell once it finally cools. Jellies, jams, and marmalades don’t typically use fruit whole because they are destined to be spread on something (or mixed into yogurt at my house!).
No comments:
Post a Comment