I’ve boarded the runaway marmalade train and can’t seem to jump off. And so we find our selves delving into this, my third marmalade-focused post in a row. Go hard or go home, right? To be honest, I’m a relative newcomer to the hallowed halls of marm, but here’s a lovely, poetic ode to this most Anglo-Saxon of spreads by Brit food writer Nigel Slater that appeared last year in the Guardian, accompanied by his Seville orange marmalade recipe. The taste of “sun on toast” – that’s exactly what I was shooting for.

Forging ahead with this citrus fest, fueled by the typical deep yearning that Canadians experience this time of year for some semblance or scrap of sunshine and warmth, I came across some peculiar orange specimens at the fruit shop. I was seeking the tastiest orange they had in stock and this happened to be a feisty Italian friend called the Oraninja.

He hails from Sicily and is nominally a blood orange, but really? He’s not so bloody. His skin nor his guts are crimson coloured, but if you look carefully there are patches of purplish red here and there. And he tastes incredibly sweet, leading me to believe that our Italian ninja is a Tarocco blood orange, the sweetest and least red of the common blood orange species currently dominating green grocer shelves.

The point is, the Oraninja is delicious and I knew he’d morph  into a mean marmalade. But this recipe can be used with any orange, really – Valencia, blood, whatev. With the ninja, it’s a rather sweet spread, but nicely balanced by the gentle bitterness of the peel. Pretty sunny, I’d venture.

(Slightly bloody) orange marmalade

Zest of 10 oranges

4 cups of juicy orange pulp

4 cups sugar

1.5 cups water

First, scrub your oranges with a vegetable brush under cold water. Using a very sharp peeler (I like my Oxo which actually has tiny little needle-sharp teeth) remove the thinnest possible slices of zest (no white stuff). Slice peel into matchsticks, or something like angel hair pasta, and put it in the water to soak.

Meanwhile, using a sharp knife, cut off all white pith surrounding the segments, then cut in half, removing the white clump of stringy pith at the centre and any seeds. Chop your juicy orange interiors and scoop them into a bowl until you’ve got about four cups.

Now mix this in with the water and zest and sugar, pour into a pot, put it on medium-low heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Then bring to medium-high heat (something between a simmer and a low boil) and cook, stirring frequently until it sets. I cooked mine about 45 minutes, until it darkened a little and the house smelled like orange candy. Voilà!

Meyers are a cross between a lemon and a mandarin, hence their orange-y complexion and sweeter taste. Now, here is my take on marmalade: take it easy. Keep it simple. Since I only use the thinnest zest and no white peel, there’s no need for overnight soaking and the formula couldn’t be easier: just mix equal parts fruit and sugar with a little water, cook until desired set is achieved, and can. Done. Or refrigerate if not canning (and eat up soon).

It helps to use a good peeler, like my Oxo peeler with ferociously sharp metal teeth:

It’s like it was born to peel perfect, thin ribbons of citrus zest for marmalade.

Easy Meyer lemon and vanilla marmalade

14-16 Meyer lemons, maybe more (enough to make 4 cups of juicy fruit)

4 cups sugar

1.5 cups water

2 vanilla beans

Scrub your lemons with a vegetable scrubber under cold water, peel the thinnest layer of zest possible (no white stuff), then cut zest into very thin strips, like angel hair pasta. You can use the peels of all your lemons if you like, or, if you prefer use less (perhaps from 3/4 of the lemons).

Put the strips of zest in the water as you carry on with the recipe, to prevent them drying out and to soften them a little. Now, using a sharp knife, cut away a slice of white pith from both ends, thereby creating two flat sides. Sit your lemon on one of these flat sides, steadying it on your work surface, then work your way around the fruit, cutting away all the white pith that remains.

Slice open your lemon, cut away the thick white center bit, then remove any seeds and chop coarsely, removing any chunky white bits. Do this with all your lemons. Continue scooping the juice and fruit bits into a bowl or measuring cup. You should have about four cups. (You can also cheat and do the chopping in a food processor after removing as much of the white stuff as possible.)

Mix fruit with sugar, water and peel, pour this melange into a pot and cook over medium-low heat at first to dissolve sugar. Now bring it to a low boil/simmer over medium-high heat and cook, stirring frequently until it darkens in colour and begins to set (put it on a cold spoon and if it gels in a few seconds, it’s ready). I cooked mine about 40 minutes.

And there you have it: a vanilla-flecked Meyer lemon delicacy. It’s a gentle, de-clawed marmalade, a fine entry point into the world of marms for those who think they don’t like them because they’re too bitter. There’s no pungent bite, just dulcet, lemony goodness with tender, wispy tendrils of tangy zest and a vanilla accent that makes it taste like cake. Even non-marmalade fans will rejoice!

Well, Tigress in a Jam has sparked a flurry of activity among online canners with her monthly can jam challenge (this canner travels too much and couldn’t commit but I love the idea!). January was citrus month and the results were amazing – 19 marmalades were concocted. Check them out. This project is going to amass an incredible compendium – 2010: Year of the Can Jam.

* Strawberry-lemon heaven

How good does this sound? Strawberry-lemon marmalade. Mmmmm. It’s by Doris and Jilly, two lady goats who are rather talented canners.

* Heirloom citrus marm

My next posts will be about the marms I make with some blood oranges and Meyer lemons I just picked up at Jean Talon market. In the meantime, check out this fantastic article on Grist about uncommon citrus and the writer’s own marmalade obsession.

* Hello, Honeybell

I love Eugenia Bone, don’t you? Love her book, Well-Preserved and totally dig her blog of the same name in the Denver Post. Here’s her marmalade ode to the Honeybell tangelos (a.k.a. Minneolas or Honeybell oranges) that she orders every year from Juno Beach, Florida.

PS: Although I don’t really buy into this heart-stamped holiday… To all the lovers (that’s everybody): Happy V-Day.

OK, taste-test time. Fun. As previously mentioned, I brought some small French jams back from Paris in my very small bag. I’ve been meaning to start doing taste-tests on this lil’ bloggy woggy, so voila: the first one.

I firmly believe that jam is best appreciated on fresh baguette with a tiny smear of unsalted butter. So that’s exactly how this was done.

Our lovely contestants today -

Carla mango and passion fruit jam:

Smells lush, fruity, tropical. Top marks for full mango flavour, not too sweet, just sultry and equatorial, passion fruit brings the tang. However, the texture is lacking. It’s too thin and liquidy for my tastes. Refrigeration will help that, but still I think it could be thicker. Also: there was a hard disc of wax (paraffin?) covering the jam, which was tricky to get out of the jar – I thought this layer of wax was ixnayed by jammers years ago. Hmmmm.

Confiture Artisanale by L’Epicurien strawberry and mint jam:

This tastes like grandma made it. Smells like gorgeous, sunny, early summer, fleeting and full of possibility. I see seeds, I see little bits of shredded mint. A really nice homemade-tasting jam, and not too sweet, the mint is subtle, just a hint. Texture has that lovely uneven, homemade, slightly clumpy charm, with bits of stringy fruit. I like.

Christine Ferber white peach and Alsatian raspberry jam:

Alright, they don’t call Ferber the queen of jam for nothing. This is a textbook perfect jam. Not too much of a smell, but texture is perfect, set but not stiff, and even looks so photogenic spread on bread. Honestly, it’s a little too sweet for my tastes and the raspberry overpowers the peach flavour, but it’s still completely delicious, obviously made using the best-quality fruit and cooked with great care. Now I understand why this stuff retails for $15 at the chichi grocer up the street.

Vive les confitures Frenchies!

Well, lucky, lucky me. After all that complaining about Montreal winter, I got to jet off to Paris for a week. So, really, I have zero right to complain. Not that Paris was much warmer, but all the foie gras and other decadent delights distracted my love and I from the cold. January is actually a great time to visit Paris. There are far less tourists and restaurant reservations are much easier to come by.

Besides four nice bottles of wine, we brought back some south-western artisan foie gras by Jeanne Bertot, a small producer who uses no nitrites, and some duck rilletes with foie gras by the venerable Maison de la Truffe, founded in 1932, who specialize in truffles (duh) and  foie gras.

My small bag wouldn’t allow for a huge bounty of treats, but I did manage to squeeze in three jams, which I shall taste-test, compare, contrast and post about soon. I got one by Christine Ferber, one by Carla and one by L’Epicurien. Yes: jam session! Until then, here’s a shot of said treats on the mirrored coffee table in our hotel room (alongside some some of the best macarons in Paris: Pierre Herme’s little wonders in flavours like chestnut and matcha green tea, and white truffle and hazelnut) :

And a few more Paris snaps:

Montreal in winter: everything fades to gray and white, the earth sits frozen under a blanket of slush and ice, and leafless tree branches shiver in an unforgiving wind that adds the dreaded “wind chill factor,” making minus five feel like minus 18. So, as you can well imagine, fresh local produce is non-existent and canning exploits can slow down to a trickle. But the other day I got a little of the old canning mojo back after a long slump and so I went searching for the best darn dried figs I could find. My goal: to brew up a tasty batch of dried fig and vanilla jam.

What I learned on my search for plump, soft dried figs and not sad little fossilized figs, was to look for stickers that say “New Crop.” Meaning, these figs were picked this past season and so are the freshest possible dried figs. Hurrah! I found mine at my favourite Little Italy grocer-deli, Milano. The resulting jam is dense, dark brown and reminiscent of Fig Newtons. Maybe it’s the vanilla that lends that cookie-ish vibe, also its dense, crunchy-seedy dried fig texture. So, if you have fond childhood memories of snacking on Fig Newtons, you’re in for a treat.

Dried fig and vanilla jam

2 lbs dried figs, preferably “new crop”

5.5 cups water

2.5 cups sugar

juice of half a lemon

1 vanilla pod

Bring figs and water to a boil, turn off the heat and allow to soak for anywhere from a few hours to overnight. Remove the figs with a slotted spoon, reserving water. Cut off the tough stems and chop the rehydrated figs roughly. Return figs to the pot, adding sugar, lemon juice and vanilla pod which has been split it open, seeds scraped into fruit mixture pod thrown in too. Bring to a low boil and cook until desired thickness is reached (I cooked mine about 35 minutes), stirring often. Pour into hot clean jars then process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

PS: On a more somber note, words can’t express the tragic insanity of the current situation  in Haiti. It’s the worst human tragedy since the tsunami of 2004. If you haven’t already donated, here’s a link to the CBC page that lists all kinds of charities that are hustling to help the most desperate people on the planet right now: http://www.cbc.ca/haitirelief/

Woah. It’s the future already. How did that happen? I’ve been slow to get moving in this very snowy New Year. But I have some dried fig jam up my sleeve (not literally – eew) so I shall be boasting and posting as soon as that is jarred.

In the meantime, enjoy the above picture my friend M. sent me of his cat, his homemade theremin and a jar of my pickles. I’m not even a cat person, but my cockles are warmed by this surrealist composition and I hope yours will be too. P.S.: Check out said M.’s awesome new blog called  The Uses of Disenchantement.

As is my personal tradition, I have once again left my holiday shopping to the last minute. But with a small family, one brother living in Australia, a Jewish husband who doesn’t much care for the frenzied commercialism of Christmas, my list is thankfully short. I mainly shop at Ten Thousand Villages a few days before the 25th, for fair trade stuff like chocolate, flower pots, serving platters, weird tambourines, scarves etc., all made by fairly paid folks in India, Africa, South America and elsewhere. Some of it’s a little too “world” or hippie but some is not bad at all. Anyway, I’d rather buy crap made by a collective of well-paid villagers than crap made by indentured child slaves. And that is my holiday rant. Feel better? I do.

And now onto canning gift ideas. Here are a few things you can spend a few hours making and have under the tree by Christmas eve. Some are by me and some recipes are culled from the interweb. You have about 48 hours left. Now go!

- Cranberries are still hanging around grocery stores. Buy them fresh or frozen and make my cranberry walnut preserve or, even easier, my cranberry-orange jam. Both will be very yummy spread on leftover turkey sandwiches.

- This one comes from Food in Jars and involves jars but not canning: the gift of handmade spice blends. Pour spices (splurge on some high-quality stuff) into jars. Label. Wrap. Done.

- British chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s edible Christmas gift ideas published in the Guardian look yummy, especially the spiced nuts and crystallized citrus peel.

- Canning Across America has a sweet post about holiday canning, with a link to a Flickr pool of pics providing wrapping and labeling inspiration.

- Another English tip sheet: the UK’s Good Food Channel lists a selection of Christmas-related canning/preserving recipes for stuff like fig jam, cranberry-orange relish and pickled ginger for sushi lovers.

That’s it for now. Good luck and happy holi-daze to one and all.

G

It’s that time of year again, when chocolate invades all aspects of life. There are advent calendars, Hanukkah gelt, chocolatey cookies and boxes of chocolates bestowed as gifts. It’s the season to indulge in overindulgence before January’s resolutions and renewed gym memberships. So let’s get our chocolate on before the season of atonement hits, shall we?

I recently turned to French jam queen Christine Ferber’s book Mes Confitures and tried my hand at her chocolate and pear jam, or as Ferber calls it, her poires belle-Hélène jam.

Poires belle-Hélène is a classic French dessert wherein poached pears are drenched in chocolate sauce. This is the jam version of that dessert, made by cooking pears with grated chocolate. A decadent treat that pairs excellently with croissants, toasted and buttered baguette or ice cream.

My grated chocolate looked like tobacco (mmmm, tobacco jam):

One can’t really process chocolate in a boiling water bath, so I recommend you keep this in the fridge and consume it within about a month (and advise the person you’re gifting it to to do the same).

Chocolate & pear (poires belle-Hélène) jam

8 cups cored, thinly sliced pears (whichever kind you like, Ferber suggests William, I used Beauté Flamandes grown in Quebec)

3 cups of sugar

1 orange, juiced

1 lemon, juiced

2 cups grated 70 % chocolate

Bring sliced pears, sugar, lemon and orange juice to a simmer, then remove from heat and add the chocolate, stirring until it melts into the fruit mixture. Allow to cool, cover and place in the fridge overnight. The next day, bring to a boil, skimming off any foam, boiling and stirring for five minutes. Pour into hot, sterilized jars (boil them for 15 minutes before pouring the jam in).

I used to think beets tasted like dirt. But as with many taste sensations classically vilified by children – olives, onions, mushrooms, stinky cheese – I’ve come to love these most intensely purple of vegetables, freaky as they are (some have hairy rat tails, you know).

I lived in Australia for a few years and grew accustomed to having them on burgers (along with egg and pineapple – I know: weird). Slices of slightly sweet, pickled beet add deliciousness to any sandwich. How much do I love thee, beets? Let me count the ways: Borscht is the bomb and so is Russian beet salad. Also, any salad involving beets, goat cheese and walnuts. Roasted beets as a side dish are as comforting as mashed potatoes, only with more vitamins. And the beet goes on.

Here’s a little beet-y thing I canned yesterday that turned out awesomely: beet, cabbage and horseradish relish.

I basically followed a recipe from my New York Times, Craig Claiborne-edited cookbook from 1961, which I seem to have on high rotation lately (I partly based my Coronation grape and walnut conserve and cranberry and toasted walnut conserve on recipes from its pages, with updated instructions on canning with a boiling water bath).

This relish turned out tangy, earthy and slightly sweet, with the faintest bit of heat from the horseradish. Also, it’s very sexy in its fuchsia-ness. Looking forward to smearing it on sandwiches, roast meats and burgers.

Beet, cabbage and horseradish relish

4 cups finely diced or grated peeled beets

4 cups shredded cabbage (I used a combo of green and purple)

1 cup grated horseradish

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 3/4 cups vinegar

3/4 cups sugar

4 tsp salt

One ingredient at a time, process the beets, cabbage and horseradish in the food processor, then mix together in a bowl. Finely chop the onion by hand and add to vegetable mixture. Add salt and stir. Dissolve sugar in vinegar and add to vegetables. Boil for 15 minutes, then pour into hot, clean jars and process in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.