Semi-homemade marmalade has a lot of flavorful orange peels. Notice the sugary sheen on them. Tangerines were used for the jam. (Photo by Asad Rahman)
In our family, orange marmalade is right there among the favorite store-bought jams and jellies. But it jumps to the No.1 spot right away after my wife, Kaisari, is done doctoring it a bit at home. Here is her prescription, and it is simple and inexpensive.
Buy a bag of oranges, which are coming on the market right now — easy-peel tangerines or clementines work best, but navel oranges will do fine. The goal here are the peels, so peel the easy-peel ones to keep the skin in pieces as large as you can. For thick-skinned ones, score the oranges just skin-deep with a sharp paring knife into four quadrants from top to bottom. Ease the peel off in 4 neat sections.
When you have done a bunch, put them in a stainless steel bowl and pour boiling water over them. Let steep for about 15 minutes and drain. When cool enough to handle, scrape the inside of the skin sections with a spoon to take out the white pith. The skins will become pliable and almost transparent. Cut the cleaned sections into thin slices.
With the fruit sections, you have a choice — enjoy them as is, or juice them for the jam. We opt for the first choice, especially if they are clementines. Now place the julienned peels into a clean nonreactive pot and add half to 1 cup of orange juice (depending on the amount of peel), either from the juiced sections or from premium-grade store bought juice.
Bring the pot to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 30 minutes. Add half to 1 cup sugar; cook and stir until sugar dissolves. Now here is the trick that makes it much easier. Add 1 or 2 bottles of good quality store-bought marmalade and stir until all the lumps are broken up. Keep simmering, uncovered, another 30 to 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the marmalade thickens and develops a sugary sheen. Pour hot into clean bottles and refrigerate. We use cleaned old jam bottles with the labels soaked and removed.
This will give you a new experience of what orange marmalade can be. Back in the old days in India, come wintertime citrus season, my mother would make homemade marmalade from scratch, the best in the world. In our Florida home now, my wife’s semi-homemade one comes awfully close. They can make great holiday gifts for family and friends. Tie a ribbon around the bottle and include the recipe too, unless you want to reserve the bragging right.
Good quality bread, creamery butter and homemade marmalade — what can be better this side of heaven!
Question: When I bake brownies, they always end up with an outside rock-hard crust, half- to 1 inch wide, which is not edible and is such a waste. Otherwise, my brownies are perfectly moist and fudgy. What can I do to improve? — Edith B., West Palm Beach
Answer: It seems as if this problem occurs time and again. So, the first thing you should do is use a reliable recipe, which for brownies you can find galore — from a book such as The Joy of Cooking or from the Internet. Even a simple recipe like a brownie’s involves several aspects for a satisfactory result — the proportion of the liquid and solid, how they are all mixed, the oven temperature and baking time, the choice of pan and even how you place that pan.
Oven temperature seems to be prime suspect here. You may be setting it too low, or your thermostat could be cutting off prematurely keeping the temperature low. So by the time the center tests done, the perimeters may have dried out. Measure ingredients properly and test your oven with a thermometer, which you can buy for around $5.
Also, when part of a cake or brownie dries out like that, you can always do some doctoring to rescue the result. Turn the dry part into crumbs and sprinkle it on ice cream or rice pudding, etc.
Feedback
Randy Burnside of Jupiter Farms, who sent in a question on asafoetida for a recent column, writes: “You mentioned that asafoetida had medicinal usage. My ‘Indian’ grandfather (one-half Cherokee) or maybe my Irish grandmother, with whom I lived my very young life on their farm in South Carolina, spoke of an ‘asafoetida bag’ that was hung around one’s neck. Was it to ward off ‘devils, demons or disease’? I’m sure they faced all of them.”
Interesting! I wouldn’t want to be the wearer, though.
Gholam Rahman is a former staff writer for The Palm Beach Post. His column appears twice a month. Send your questions to him at gholam_rahman@pbpost.com or call (561) 820-4550 or (800) 432-7595, Ext. 4550.
