It's Seville orange time

The house is full of the wonderful citrussy aroma of poaching Seville oranges.

They're available in the shops for just a few weeks annually after New Year. and we buy them to make the marmalade we have each morning on toast for breakfast. The Sevilles appeared a couple of days ago and Joan bought a kilo.

Seville oranges are a small thick skinned bitter-sweet fruit high in pectin whose main use is marmalade.

Since we found that they would freeze well, we buy a years supply so we can make marmalade as necessary throughout the year. If we play it right in two or three weeks time the shop will dramatically reduce the price to sell of remaining Sevilles and we can fill the freezer. But the thought of bein gwithout homemade marmalade throughout the year means we will be buying more next tomorrow.

So, they've been cut in half.and are poaching in some water. Tomorrow it's my job to remove the pips (there are a great many) and slice the peel into small pieces.

Then Joan will add sugar and boil them to setting point, and voila we'll have about 9 jars of marmalade.

Nice work. I love all things citrus and enjoy going through the different varieties as they come and go during the season (right now am happy about moro and tarocco blood oranges. But, I don't make homemade jam, so I have yet to experience the pleasures of which you speak. (And they sound delicious)

[Jenise]

What a great thing to do. I've never made even one jar of jam, as jam and toast are carb-intense luxuries I rarely allow myself. But I've really learned to love marmalade for those occasions when I indulge. And I never stopped to think about what kind of oranges would have been used in the marmalades I do get. We don't see Seville oranges here--I did exactly one time, and sent half the stash I bought to Mike Filigenzi. I made that South American roast pork dish--pili pili or pillibilli or something like that. Wonder what he did with his? I don't recall.

A good friend of mine has a chinotto orange tree, which produces small, somewhat bitter oranges. The thing produces a ton of fruit and I have a bunch of them in my kitchen right now. They'll probably go towards orange bitters rather than marmalade (which my pal makes).