This is the mandarin marmalade recipe we cook together in a Jacican citrus preserving class.

You have heard me talk before about my tree change, and when we arrived, there were only three fruit trees on the property. 

This gave us a blank garden canvas to work with, allowing us to design and plant what we wanted to grow, cook, and eat. 

Over the last 17 years, the garden has evolved from having no citrus trees to featuring four different lemons, cumquats, limes, oranges, a few citrus hybrids and mandarins. 

Mandarins are one of the few fruits BM will eat, unabated, so two trees, an imperial and an emperor, were planted early on.

Both crop abundantly each year, providing us with fresh fruit to snack on for up to six months, with plenty for mandarin marmalade. 

Mandarin Marmalade Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 kg of mandarins
• 2 litres of water
• 2 kgs of sugar

Method

1. Wash your mandarins, then cut or pull off the stalks.

It is likely that if you are using store-bought mandarins, someone else has already removed the stalks for you.

2. Roughly chop the mandarins so that the pieces fit more easily into your food processor. Place in the bowl of your food processor.  

3. Process until mandarins are roughly chopped, but still have a few larger pieces. This should take approximately one minute to process. 

4. Place the chopped mandarins in a large non-corrosive container. Here, we use rectangular plastic boxes with lids. 

5. Cover the mandarins with 2 litres of water. Put the lid on and place them in the fridge overnight. 

By covering the mandarins with water and leaving them to soak overnight, you accomplish two things: drawing the pectin out of the fruit and softening it for a faster cooking time. 

6. The next day, place the mandarin and water in a large saucepan and bring to the boil. Once the mixture has boiled, reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, or until the fruit has become translucent.

7. Add the sugar. Return to a boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Once the marmalade is boiling, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the setting point is reached. This will take up to 2 hours. 

8. Bottle. 

This recipe makes 9 * 250ml jars of mandarin marmalade. 

Mandarin marmalade pairs perfectly with toast, as a glaze for ham, or you could steam it in a steamed pudding. 

If you would like to learn to cook mandarin marmalade, come along to a Jacican - citrus preserving class.

Together we will cook marmalade using three different recipes and three different types of citrus  - Lemons, mandarins and grapefruit - along with other citrus preserves.

This recipe is from Olive Scott.

It was given to me by Jannette Langely when bringing her granddaughter to a Jacican kid's cooking class. 

I have changed it from imperial and metric and use whole spices, crushed where I can.

This recipe is a vegetarian version of a Worcestershire sauce (but we can’t call it Worcestershire because we don’t live in Worcester). 

Plum Hot Sauce Recipe

Ingredients

• 1.8 kilograms of plums
• 1.2 kilograms of treacle
• 28 grams of pepper, ground - you can use whole and crush
• 14 grams of ginger, ground 
• 30 grams of salt
• 900 grams of brown sugar
• 3.3 kilograms of vinegar
• 28 grams of allspice - you can use whole and crush
• 7 grams of cayenne pepper
• 110 grams of garlic, crushed

Method

1. Wash plums. Cut the plums in half and remove the stone. Place plum in a large preserving pan.
2. Put the rest of the ingredients in the pan with the plums. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring to prevent sticking.
3. Boil for 1 hour or until the sauce thickens to the consistency you like. 
4. Bottle and seal. 

This is one of the recipes we make in Jacican preserving cooking class.

I love tomato season, and you get to make your year's supply of chutneys and sauces. 

I usually make 10x of this recipe at once - you will just need a bigger pot. 

Ingredients

• 1 kg red tomatoes - peeled and chopped
• 1 brown onion - peeled and diced
• 1 clove garlic - peeled and chopped
• 330 ml vinegar
• 160 grams of sultanas
• 4 cloves
• pinch (small) cayenne
• 1/2 TB salt
• 200 grams of sugar

Method

Put all ingredients - EXCEPT SUGAR -in a large saucepan. 

Heat over medium heat, stirring until boiling.  Cook until mixer thickens, about 1 and 1/2 hr hours.

Remove from heat.  Add sugar, return to heat, stirring until boiling.  Cook a further 1 and 1/2 hours until the mixer does not separate.  Stir frequently. 

Bottle and seal in hot sterilized jars

This recipe should make 5 x 250ml jars of chutney. 

This is one of the recipes you will learn to make in a Jacican preserving cooking class, depending on seasonality and availability of produce. 

Each preserving class changes depending on what is available in the Jacican kitchen garden. 

The best time to visit Jacican to learn to preserve tomatoes is from February to May each year. 

To book into a Jacican Preserving class, follow the link here. 

In 2023, Jacican is holding a one-off Tomato preserving class where you will learn how to preserve tomatoes in six different ways. Tomato Preserving can be booked through One Hour Out. 

On the Jacican cook group, you asked for my Tomato sauce recipe.

Here is it …

Tomato sauce

This recipe uses 1 kilogram of fresh tomatoes. You can expand this recipe to the weight of tomatoes you have to cook. I would usually do 10 kg at a time.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 kg Red Tomatoes - roughly chopped

1 clove of garlic

1 whole allspice

5-gram yellow mustard seeds

2 whole cloves

pinch (small one) cayenne

120 ml vinegar

6-gram salt

75-gram sugar

Method

Cook tomato and garlic until well pulped. Put through mouli to break down to a fine pulp and remove the skin and seeds. Rinse out the pan and return the pulp to it.

Tie spices in a muslin bag and add to tomatoes along with cayenne, vinegar, salt, and sugar. Cook until it does not separate anymore. Approximately 1 and 1/2 hours. Strain to remove spices.

Bottle and seal in hot sterilised bottles