clementine marmalade

after a successful venture with nigella’s clementine cake recipe, i got to thinking about stewing up homemade clementine marmalade.  the thinking led to doing and lo and behold, i found myself hovered over the stove slowly stirring a pot of clementines with the marvellous recipe book (mes confitures) of christine ferber as my guide.the ingredients in christine’s clementine marmalade recipe are remarkably simple (i had to fight the urge to add a fistful of spices), but the entire process takes 3 days.   the clementines are cooked and macerated overnight over the course of 72 hours to ensure that the sugars have had sufficient time to integrate with the fruit, while letting the fruit retain its texture.  a big proponent of doing things the traditional way, christine’s recipe  also calls for green apple jelly, which she uses as her “pectin stock” jelly (much as a savoury chef would use beef or chicken stock as the base for many sauces), in the final stages to firm up the marmalade.  being a bit short on green apple jelly, i substituted with powdered pectin instead.

the result is something ooey, gooey, chunky, and orangey, which you would be proud to gift or simply happy to slather on toast alongside a big bowl of fresh  berries come July!

Clementine Marmalade
(makes 3 cups, adapted from Christine Ferber’s Mes Confitures)

Clementines	800g, about 9-10 clementines
Sugar	700g
Lemons	Juice from 2 small lemons
Pectin (Calcium Water)	2 tsp (2 tsp)

1. Wash clementines in cold water, then dry quickly with a towel.
2. Cut the clementines into very thing rounds.  Remove the seeds.  Then slice the rounds into quarters.
3. Cook clementines with sugar and lemon juice in a wide bottomed pot.  I used a 6 quart dutch oven.  Bring to boil, then pour into a heat proof bowl, cover with parchment or plastic and refrigerate overnight.
4. Repeat step 3 again the next day
5. On the final day, pectin is added to the mixture.  I use low-methoxyl pectin which calls for a bit of calcium water to activate it. Either high-methoxyl or low-methoxyl will work; high methoxyl is actually preferred for the recipe, but i didn’t have it on hand.  At any rate, you generally want to follow the instructions the manufacturer recommends for the usage of pectin.  In my case, I poured the refrigerated clementine mixture back into the pot, added in the calcium water and brought it to a boil.  Then, I dissolved the pectin (you have to dissolve the pectin first; it will clump if you pour it into the high-sugar clementine mixture. to do so, bring about 1/2 cup of water or juice to boil and drop in pectin.  stir constantly, until dissolved. the water/juice will reduce by half or more.) before pouring the  hot liquid pectin into the pot.
6. Continue cooking and stirring constantly for 5 more minutes.  Then pour into your canning jars.  The pectin will set when completely cool.

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