by Catherine Haug, December 3, 2011
Orange Marmalade
Last year I posted on Preserved Lemons, made by LaProvence restaurant and featured at the Village Market. In case you have not tried this wonderful technique for preserving lemons through the off-season, you are missing out. They lend wonderful flavor to recipes calling for lemon.
You can preserve other citrus in a similar way, or you can try making orange marmalade by lacto-fermentation, the older technique that predated canning as a means of food preservation. This won’t have the sweetness and sticky jelly-like texture of canned marmalade, but it is delicious nevertheless – slightly salty, tangy, and a bit of sweetness in a sunshine-yellow way. I use it in my morning smoothie, on ice cream, yogurt, and in baked goods. It would also be great in soups, stews or other main dishes.
I made a batch earlier this year and took photos along the way, then wrote it up in a photo-recipe in case you want to give it a try. The basic idea is from Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon, but I’ve modified it with ideas from RejoiceInLife.com’s recipe for Ginger-Citrus Marmalade. Ingredients include: oranges, lemons, ginger, honey, Organic sugar, whey, salt and natural pectin.
Or see my blog, Cats Kitchen: Marmalade (Lacto-Fermented Citrus) for the recipe and information about the ingredients. I also made a 2-page printable pdf file of just the recipe: OrangeMarmalade-CHaug2.pdf