COOKING POOR, EATING RICH: Orange marmalade OR How Irma Rombauer reached down from kitchen heaven and bitch-slapped me.

Irma's first step, soaking the quartered citrus

Hey, I don't know everything.
I keep learning. Lets me know I'm alive.
This is my story of how I dropped the ball. Don't worry, I picked it up and carried it to score.
Sometime last year I ended up with sack upon sack of oranges. Folks in Phoenix grow LOADS in their yards and once they find out you want some they will start leaving it on your doorstep. SO. Being me I wanted to find a way to utilize it all. I did some research (My copy of "Joy of Cooking" again) and taught myself how to make orange marmalade. I used ol' lady Irma's formula which is more than a little time-consuming and labor-intensive. What the hey, I'm single I have lots of time.

Wait for it.

Like most cookbooks written back then her chapter on preserving begins with lots of practical information on procedure, technique and wisdom. I skipped all that. DUHHHH.

I've used that formula many times. It's old-fashioned but it always worked for me. This year I wanted to make marmalade to give as Christmas presents. Her formula calls for 4 oranges, one lemon. I needed to make much much more so I did the math and started with 10#'s of oranges and lemons. I even took pictures. Here's some.

Here's me showing how to hand shred the fruit

oo what a waste of time, 10 pounds of oranges

the cooking of the fruit, 5 hours

inedible sludge

Failure. Even though I stood over it and kept stirring during the whole reduction process. The sugar-water ratio didn't turn in time for the peels to be cooked all the way through so I kept it on heat until all the white part disappeared. Unfortunately by then the sugar had started to caramelize. I was left with singed, orange flavored, soft-candy stage CRAP.

I did it. It was me. I didn't thoroughly research the process. Irma says it right there. These recipes have been tested for these amounts and should not be expanded unless by a very practiced and experienced cook. Well crap, Irma. The REASON she used the whole peel was because commercial pectin wasn't readily available in 1931 and so she had to use what was available in the pith of the peel.

Back to the drawing board, or in this case the cutting board.

Another 10 pounds of oranges. Back to research mode. Here we go.

Mise-en-place

10 pounds of clean fresh oranges

3 lemons

7 cups of sugar (abouts)

4 cups water and any juice, no more. Separate in half. The best way to do this is to dump any juice off your cutting-board into a large measuring cup and then add water to total 4 cups.

reserve 1/4 cup of the sugar in a separate container

2 packages of pectin. I did NOT use the low-sugar pectin. You'll use all of one packet and a little of the second.

pinch salt

Peeler

sharp knife

about 16-18 8oz BALL jars

a big pot of boiling water

another big pot for cooking the fruit

a small pot for cooking the peels

Grab your peeler. Take off JUST the orange part. Leave behind the white spongy evil part of the peel.

Now with your hands remove as much of the white part from the fruit as you can. Discard.

Slice fruit across to make wheels. Catch as much of the juice as you can. Remove any of the seeds and spongy white stuff from the center. Chop up the fruit and dump into a large pot for now.

Now, slice up all those peels. In 2 cups of your 4 cups of water and juice bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Set aside.

Take the separated 1/4 cup of sugar and combine it with the contents of 1 packet of pectin plus just a bit from the second packet. Stir it into your fruit.