In one of my previous jobs we spent hours segmenting citrus for jams, it was tasty but who really has time to faff about segmenting endless oranges? This jam recipe uses the entire mandarin, giving it the same slight bitterness of marmalade but the fresh fruitiness of jam. Boiling the mandarins whole removes some of the bitterness and softens the peel, plus it’s zero waste which is always a good thing!
The citric acid is really necessary, without it the jam just is a bit bland and the flavour of the peel tends to take over, the citric acid just brightens the whole thing up and brings a lovely freshness, if you can’t get hold of it you can replace it with a good squeeze of lemon juice but citric acid is my preference, read more about it here.
This recipe works well with any citrus fruit, just adjust the citric acid accordingly, I make it all of the time with oranges and have made it with lemons a few times, I’m quite keen to try it with limes and kumquats next, I’ll keep you updated if I do!
Mandarin Jam
Ingredients
1kg mandarins (about 12)
400g caster sugar
5g (1tsp) citric acid
5g pectin mixed with 10g sugar
Method
Start by boiling the mandarins, place them in a pan filled with water, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for one hour.
When they’re done and cool enough to handle, pour away the water and remove the top little bit (does this have a name!?) and the seeds.
Roughly chop or blend, it can be as chunky or as smooth as you like.
Add back into a pan with the sugar and citric acid and cook on a medium heat stirring occasionally.
Bring the mixture to the boil before showering in the pectin mixed with sugar.
Let it gently boil for at least 15 minutes or until it thickens and reaches 104°C/ 219°F before removing it from the heat.
Store in sterilised jars in the fridge for up to a month.
Use, as you would any jam, this recipe pairs really well with chocolate so is great as a filling in chocolate orange desserts and cakes. It’s also great as a jammy dodger filling, see below. I’ll share my basic biscuit recipe soon!