The Bitter and the Sweet

Isn't marmalade a great word? When I hear it I think of fragrant citrus groves, warm Spanish breezes, and heel-snapping flamenco. Traditional marmalade is made from Seville oranges, of course, which is why castanets always spring to mind - but the marmalade with which I've spent the most time hails from Dundee, where foot-stamping senoritas are in rather short supply. The Scottish connection with bitter citrus preserves is a long and noble one, however: Mary, Queen of Scots, is said to have used marmalade as a cure for seasickness.

Whether Spanish or Scottish, really good marmalade is not that easy to find in my part of the world. The peel must be thick-cut and chewy, I humbly submit, with hardly any jelly binding the pieces together. When the lid is removed from the jar, the aroma wafting forth ought to be heady and redolent of summer's heat. The flavour should be dark, bitter, and mysterious, with top notes of slightly-sweet citrus. Although the preferred variety chez Fractured Amy is orange, I am not entirely averse to new-fangled varieties made from limes or exotic citrus fruits like ortaniques, nasnarans, or citrangequats.

The basic technique for making your own marmalade is simplicity itself, particularly if you make the sort that does not require proper vacuum preserving. It is far more delicious than 95% of the jars available at the supermarket and will keep quite well for a month in the fridge, should any remain unconsumed for that long.

The procedure for delicious home-made fridge-a-lade couldn't be easier to master or remember:

1. scrub well your citrus of choice (you can make fridge-a-lade with as few as three or four pieces of fruit)
2. cut each fruit into quarters, lengthwise
3. remove any seeds and unsightly membranes, stems, etc.
4. slice each quarter lengthwise into slices thick enough for your purposes, and cut them in half cross-wise if you so desire
5. measure the resulting pile of fruit volumetrically and plop it in a big saucepan
6. add the same volume of water as fruit, bring to a boil, and simmer until the peel is tender (half an hour, or so)
7. add the same volume of sugar as the original fruit, stir well, and simmer until 220 deg F is reached (another thirty minutes, maybe)
8. you're done

Beyond that, the choices are legion. I made a batch yesterday out of some tangerines and oranges (I also threw in a lemon, because I had one) and it was terribly terribly wonderful. Melissa Clark recently offered a recipe in the NYTimes that included Meyer lemons and blood oranges, and very beautiful it looked, too. You can use white granulated sugar or raw sugar, or a mixture. Go wild.

I have lamented previously the dearth of suitable gluten-free vehicles for transferring jams and preserves of all kinds from jar to stomach (I refuse, as you know, to eat gluten-free breads of doom), but somehow marmalade transcends the typical confiture applications. It is heavenly as a condiment for cheeses, whether aged or fresh. It's great as a filling for rich cakes and macarons and a zesty adornment for panna cotta. If bread is absolutely required, then good cornbread is a sweet, fresh foil for marmalade's complex flavours.

Lately, I've been forsaking supermarket fruit-flavored yogurt in the morning and making my own with creamy, slightly sour organic superyogurt topped with (you guessed it) all-natural, virtuous, made-with-my-own-fair-hands fridge-a-lade. Eating it, I can almost forget the ice, and snow, and howling gales and imagine myself in sunny Spain.

Or sunny Dundee.



Orange fridge-a-lade and plain yogurt:
breakfast worth getting out of bed for