Although we stock some lovely marmalades in our shops including Jennifer’s Kitchen marmalades made at Jennifer’s home in Little Walsingham, now’s the time to make your own if you’re going to during the short Seville orange season. We have Sevilles and sugar in the shops all ready to go.
Even if you’re not going to make your own marmalade, the Sevilles have a marvellous aromatic tang, like a very special lemon, which makes them a brilliant addition to salad dressing, or with fish, or wherever you would think to use a lemon. Try with a watercress, chicory and orange salad, scattered with lightly toasted walnuts and crumbled blue cheese. Also delicious with early rhubarb, stewed apple or poached pears. The season is short – just into February then it will be over for another year.
Everyone likes their marmalade different: thick or thin peel, strong and dark and treacly or light and tangy. There are so many recipes out there to help you make a million different varieties.
I like mine sharp, transparent and set, with plenty of peel but very thinly cut. I use a recipe from Tamasin Day-Lewis which I saved from a Telegraph column years ago http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/3294304/This-weeks-recipes.html
One tip for marmalade success is cooking the peel well first before you add the sugar: whether you cook the fruit whole as suggested in some recipes, or sliced as is more traditional. Whichever you do, if the peel isn’t properly soft before you add the sugar the peel will be hard and chewy and the jam around it syrupy and gloopy.