Mandarin Marmalade - a bitter sweet experience

Herself came back from shopping yesterday with a bag of four mandarins. They were cheap, she said, at $1.99 a kilo. She proceeded to peel and bite - and then, ugh. So bitter was the verdict. Waste not, want not, said Miss Eagle. Time for Mandarin Marmalade. Mandarin Marmalade, in Miss E's view, is the Queen of all marmalades. If your taste is to the bitter marmalades this would not suit you. This is a sweet marmalade. The recipe is from Sunset's Home Canning book of more than thirty years ago. Yes, I have kept it all that time - could do with a bit of a glue - and it has travelled Australia with me.

Here is the recipe. I have left in it the names of the American mandarin varieties. Here in Australia, I use any variety that comes to hand. I am not certain of the variety used yesterday since they were not labelled - but I think they were Ellendales.

MANDARIN MARMALADE

Ingredients

• 5 or 6 Kinnow or Wilking mandarin oranges
• 3 cups of water
• 4 1/2 cups of sugar

Method

• Carefully peel mandarins with your fingers, keeping pieces of peel as large as possible.
• Set peel aside.
• Cut mandarins in half crosswise
• Pick out seeds and discard.
• Whirl enough fruit in a blender (or rub through a food mill) to make 2 cups of pulp
• Pour into a wide saucepan.
• Add water
• Very thinly slice (cut in julienne strips) enough of the mandarin peel to make 1/2 cup
• Add peel and sugar to pulp in pan.
• Stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved.
• Turn heat to high and boil rapidly, stirring frequently, until the jell point is reached.
• This takes about 40 minutes.
• Remove marmalade from heat at once.
• Bottle