I Made Marmalade

I was so excited to receive my first annual delivery of beautiful Seville oranges from Twisted Citrus recently…..these gems are very rare here in New Zealand, available for a few short weeks in late September /early October, so, I knew I wanted to do something special with them. What better way to increase their longevity, than by preserving them into beautiful homemade marmalade.

The time consuming process of making a truly good marmalade hasn’t always come so easily….in my first house, there was a grapefruit tree at the bottom of my garden..I was 25 and impatient. I loved the look of jars of homemade preserves and the thought of styling them was incredibly inviting, but I distinctly remember my mother scoffing at me that there was just the tiniest possibility I may not have the patience to cut the rind and prepare it from scratch...there may have been some truth in it at the time!

The year, however, was different! I loved the slow and measured process of preparing the oranges and making this marvellous marmalade! It’s true the process is a little labour intensive (prepping the fruit and cutting the rinds is at least an hour, as well as the 24 hours that the peels soaked away in juice and water, as well as the actual cooking time of around an hour)...however there was something enjoyable comforting about the act of preparing it over days and of course, the house was filled with the magnificent and uplifting citrus aroma of sweet orange.

There are many beautiful recipes out there, however I cannot go past Delia Smith’s ‘Traditional Seville Orange Marmalade’ for a stunning (and not too sickly sweet) version...delicious!