From Suq to Shuk

Blood orange marmalade

As previously recounted, I purchased a whole bunch of blood oranges recently.  They're not in season for very much of the year and with fruit like that it's always great to make jam!  The marmalade came out excellently.  It's a great accompaniment to game meat, also great on toast with butter or foie gras.  Use it anyway you would any other marmalade.

Ingredients:

3 blood oranges

about 225 grams of sugar

1 cinnamon stick

6 black peppercorns

Two small or one large allspice berry

1/4 cup of cointreau (orange liquer)

750 ml of water

Directions:

Pour boiling water over the oranges, allow them to sit for thirty seconds, then place in cool water.  Repeat twice more with fresh boiling water (use a kettle).  Cut off the ends of the oranges where the stem lies, then slice up into 1/4" dice, discarding seeds as you go.  Weigh the diced oranges (should be about 450 g) and add half that weight in sugar.  Combine in a sauce pan.

Heat cointreau in a pot over medium heat and add cinnamon, pepper and allspice.  Bring to a boil, then cover and immediately turn off the heat.  Allow to sit covered for ten minutes.  Remove the spices and pour the liquid into the saucepan with your sugar and oranges.  Bring to a boil over medium heat, then lower to medium-low and allow to simmer for about 1.5 hours.  To tell if your jam is ready, scrape the bottom of the sauce pan with a silicone spatula (don't use metal), and if the mixture does not immediately follow the spatula to fill in the gaps, your jam is done.  Don't over cook or it will turn to caramel.

B'Teavon!

     

Spicy kumquat-pink peppercorn chutney

My friend Ilan the other day brought up a kumquat salad I had made sometime last March that he thoroughly enjoyed, despite the fact that neither of us could remember what exactly I had put in it.  Ilan REALLY like kumquats.  I like kumquats, by I have a slight aversion to the extremely sour interior.  The incredible thing about kumquats is that (readers may correct me if I'm wrong) they are the only citrus whose sweetness lies entirely in the peel, while the sourness comes from the pulp.  I still have some thanksgiving left overs (from Friday, not Thursday... but this is probably the last day I would dare to eat them).  I decided to make sandwiches out of my left over turkey, but I am easily bored by sandwiches.  I strove to make something delicious, and I have.  I paired my kumquat chutney with cherry tomatoes, my braised turkey breast, and a basil butter I prepared.  The recipes for those other components of the sandwich will come tomorrow.  For now, here's the chutney.

This recipe only produces about 1 cup of chutney, so multiply this recipe as necessary

Ingredients:

A chiffonade of the peels of 10 kumquats, or about 55 grams.

150 grams of sugar

the juice of 1 lime

3 tbls of tripple sec

1 tsp of pink pepper corns

one thai bird chili, slit and seeded

a pinch of salt

2 cups of water

2 tsp chiffonade of mint

Directions:

To make a chiffonade of your kumquat peels you must first slice off the top and bottom of the kumquat, then make a slit in one side.  Pull back the skin a bit and lay that flat against the cutting board.  With your knife parallel to the flatened skin, move the knife forwards as your remove the core, flattening out the rest of the peel in the process.  Then cut very thin strips, as seen below.

Combine all ingredients in a pot except the mint.  Set over medium low heat for about 45 minutes, or until the liquid is viscous enough.  A good way to tell, is to push around the contents of your marmalade with a silicone spoon - when moving around the mixture, and the gaps are not immediately filled in, your chutney is ready - if liquid flows in right behind your silicon spoon, it's not ready.

Pour this into a jar or bowl, allow to cool for two minutes before stirring in chiffonade of mint.  At the same time, remove the chili.  Allow to come to room temperature before placing it in the fridge.

B'Teavon

p.s. I think the photo I took with flash looks rather psychedelic.