Seville Orange Marmalade | Garden To Table Recipe

January and February are the months for Seville oranges (Citrus Aurantium), and for us that means it’s time to make homemade Seville orange marmalade! Also known as bitter or sour oranges and sometimes called ‘ornamental’ oranges, these were originally brought by Arab traders from China and heavily cultivated in Seville, Spain – hence the name. They look and smell like sweet oranges (Citrus sinensis) but are just as sour as lemons. I’ve seen many planted as hedges here in Phoenix, which is what we did. And as I expected, the blossoms’ aroma is heavenly and the thorns are wicked. What we didn’t expect was the amount of fruit produced.

Seville oranges are packed with pectin, the natural gelling agent that’s perfect for making jams and jellies. When these oranges made their way to the British isles, they sparked the creation of Seville orange marmalade, which the British absolutely adore. A quick internet search will lead you to countless recipes claiming to be the “best” or “most authentic,” along with annual contests and serious bragging rights. It’s a big deal over there! Following one of these recipes will yield a marmalade quite unlike the typical grocery store variety. Moreover, Seville oranges can be used in various culinary creations, including marinades, curd, cake, ceviche, and even bitters. Basically, anything you’d use a lemon or lime for, you can do with Seville oranges.

Marmalade 101
The National Center for Home Food Preservation says “Marmalades are soft fruit jellies containing small pieces of fruit or peel evenly suspended in the transparent jelly. They often contain citrus fruit”. Orange marmalade includes just a few ingredients: the oranges, maybe some lemon, sugar, and water. As you might have guessed, the techniques for processing the oranges and the amount and type of sugar used varies.Here’s a little break down of parts of the orange: you’ve got the zest or outer rind, the white pith or albedo just beneath the zest, the juice, the pips or seeds, and everything else (the membrane around the segments, the core, and the leftover pulp after juicing). It’s worth noting that every part, including the pips, plays a crucial role in the marmalade, whether as a flavor source or a pectin provider.

You have many options when making  marmalade, and the first step is to choose your desired consistency. How chunky and what parts do you want to include in your marmalade? The first time we made marmalade, we thinly sliced the whole orange after juicing and included everything except the pips (seeds). It was tasty, but too chunky to spread.

We adapted our Seville orange marmalade recipe and technique from Giulia Scarpaleggia’s blog, Juls Kitchen. This was largely because her proportion of sugar to oranges was roughly 1:1, while most recipes come in at about 1 part oranges to 2 parts sugar. We also substituted turbinado for her golden caster sugar.

The process is to juice the oranges and strain to capture the pips and ‘everything else’. Then we scraped the pith from the oranges, leaving the zest with a bit of the remaining rind. We bagged the pith, pips and everything else in a jelly bag and placed it in a non-reactive bowl with the juice. The zest then was sliced thinly and added to the bowl along with the recommended amount of water and placed in the refrigerator for an overnight rest.

The next morning, we placed the mixture in a stewpot and simmered for about an hour and a half, until the zests were tender. The jelly bag with the pith, pips and everything else was removed, cooled a bit, and then squeezed into a bowl. We wanted to get as much of the rendered pectin out as possible. Next, we poured into the pot, added the turbinado sugar, then brought to a simmer for 30 minutes.