Thursday, February 23, 2012

Experimenting with Citrus: oberservations so far

*ugh, blood orange marmalade with the whole peel is WAY too bitter, some people may like it but its a bit much for me. It set without pectin very well, but the flavor is not what I wanted. Going to can it and use it to make an asian orange chicken sauce later, oh well. Learn from experience! Next time I'll peel zest off and supreme the fruit before chopping it up.

EDIT: 2nd and 3rd batches turned out way better! theres still a lingering note of bitterness, but its only really noticeable straight from the jar, I don't notice it on toast.

*satsumas make lousy marmalade so far, not enough flavor there after (gently) cooking, and the fruit just stays floating as the little juice sacs, had to mix in some pulp from the murcott tangerines and add some TJs tangerine juice to up the flavor. They are great for eating fresh, but after trying to cut them with a mandoline slicerr the skin separated off instantly ( they are so easy to peel) and there was a whole lot of 'pith' to clean off the fruit before chopping it up and adding it to the thinly sliced peels to simmer.

*Kumquats are a huge pain in the ass to cut up, but they make the most awesome, INTENSE citrus spread, ever! I don't know how a fruit so tiny could have 3-5 seeds in each, makes the food processor or mandoline useless and gives the wrists a ton of exercise cutting them by hand.

*cara caras, limes, and mayer lemons make good "whole fruit" marmalade, whole peel and all (sliced thin with a mandoline) after simmering and leaving to sit overnight so the pectin can dissolve into the juice/water.

EDIT: Huzzah! I realized that letting the fruit/sugar mixture come to a boil for a bit, then let sit overnight (again) seems to fix the floating fruit bits issue.

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