Going to Your DeKalb Farmer’s Market is an exercise in restraint regardless of how frequently I go. This time the piles of succulent citrus called to me from their bins, and I wanted to take them all home. Every kind of Orange, Tangerine, Lemon, Lime you can imagine (no Buddha hands tho) ripe for the picking. To narrow things down I decided on oranges, and further tightening the net I restricted myself to fruits from Florida. Among all of the Navels and Minnelos there was one lonely bin of Hamlins – and I decided to take them home.
Not knowing ahead of time what I was going to make, I didn’t buy quite enough oranges so I had to flesh out the juice with some tangerines from my last YDFM foray. I really wanted to make an Orange Jelly, but all I kept finding was marmalade recipes. With some poking I was able to find a Spiced Orange Jelly recipe from the National Center for Home Food Preservation and I thought it would work as a base, even tho I really didn’t want to do the commercial pectin route – eh win some lose some.
Hardware: canning stuff, see the ridiculously long page I wrote about The Canning Thing.
Orange Thyme Coriander Jelly – makes 4 half pints
based on Spiced Orange Jelly from NCHFP
The Software:
2 C Orange Juice (4 Hamlins + 2 Tangerines)
1/3 C Lemon Juice
2/3 C Water
1 box Pwd Pectin
1 T Orange Zest, finely chopped
1 T Coriander seed, whole
3 1/2 C Sugar
1 T Thyme Leaves, fresh plus whole springs for jars
Peel one of the oranges to get the zest and juice all fruit – remove seeds. Combine juice, zest, water and pectin with coriander that has been tied into a little bag. Stir constantly on high heat until you reach a full rolling boil. Add sugar and continue to stir. When you get back up to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down begin timing for one minute and then turn off heat.
Continue to stir and remove spice bag, add in thyme leaves. Place one or two springs of thyme in each of your jars (that you have been keeping in your BWB) and fill to 1/4 head space. Do the whole jar wiping, lidding process as for any other canning. Process for time appropriate to your altitude – for me that is 10 minutes.
Conclusions:
The original recipe called for spicing of cinnamon, cloves et all – you know, the usual suspects. And I just wasn’t feeling that combo. It seems to be the combo that gets thrown into everything and it gets a little old. For apple butter I can see it – but the flavors are just too wintry for citrus as far as I am concerned. Coriander is one of my favorite spices, and it never gets to take center stage. Always in the chorus but never the Diva, now is it’s time. Or thyme. hehehe
Now the question is, other than toast – what shall I eat my concoction upon?
A Confession:
I was weak and I didn’t just buy oranges, there were Meyer lemons and how does one say no to Meyer lemons? Those bad boys are currently soaking in the ‘fridge all sliced up and mangled, biding their time. So obviously there will be a Citrus can jam version 2.0 in the near future.
January 18, 2010 at 1:11 pm
That sounds quite yummy. Last time I went to Berlin the hotel had an orange/strawberry jelly that was really awesome. Wish I could find that combo somewhere.
January 18, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Hmm, I will see if I can dig something up by Strawberry season. It shouldn’t be that difficult – the citrus will provide the pectin for the strawberries, which lack pectin.
I will at least have to find something to work from. Sounds like we need to take our wee ones Strawberry picking this coming summer. I bet there are some pick your own farms out near you.
January 18, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Oh, I like the way the thyme looks in the suspended marmalade – very pretty.
I like my preserves stirred into plain yogurt, or dolloped on angel food cake (which is great to make with the egg whites left over from citrus curd).
January 21, 2010 at 4:54 pm
Oh, the picture is OUTSTANDING!!!! It could be the cover of a canning book! I agree with Anita concerning the yogurt – I eat lots of plain yogurts with my homemade jams/ jellies/ marmalades stirred into.
January 31, 2010 at 5:46 am
Beautiful. Really is a bit of sunshine.
February 14, 2010 at 12:47 am
So pretty! And I LOVE thyme! Yummy!