Marmalade

Yuzu is a popular citrus in Japan, an earthy, richly perfumed fruit in a class of its own. Full of seeds and with little juice, its strength is in its heady peel. There is at present little supply and huge demand here, but I was able, by guaranteeing to purchase a grower’s entire crop and picking them myself--very sharp thorns!--to get a better price. Most I made into syrup, but decided to do a bit of marmalade as well. Blended with a bit of Texas lemon, white grapefruit and Meyer lemon juice, it is superb!

Ingredients: yuzu, cane sugar, Texas lemon, water, Meyer lemon & grapefruit juice
8 oz.

I pick white cocktail grapefruit, my favorite, from an old tree near downtown Napa, California and blend them with several Gene Lester rarities. The Mandalo and Poorman oranges are both delicious orange-grapefruit hybrids, and the 2 others, Shekwasha and Sacaton citrumelo, are grapefruit-like exotics with notes of passionfruit, mango, pineapple and pine. An even greater proportion of juice here and a blending of the exotic and familiar make this stellar marmalade a rocket-ride of superb flavor, with a long finish, gorgeous color and a perfect set. Wonderful with cheese.

Ingredients: Cane sugar, white grapefruit, water, Poorman orange, Mandalo, Shekwasha, Sacaton citrumelo
8 oz.

One of my sharper marmalades and one of my most loved, a lime love-fest of Bearss lime, kaffir lime, Rangpur lime, Tavares limequat, and Palestinian sweet lime, an unusual citrus that contains no acid. Sharp and zesty, great with cheese or as a meat glaze, try it in a marinade with mustard and soy sauce for pork tenderloin. My mother loves it!

Ingredients: Cane sugar, Key limes, Rangpur limes, limequats, kaffir limes, Palestinian sweet limes, water
8 oz.

Although I am indebted to his generosity for many of my accent exotics, the strength of the Gene Lester citrus collection is in its diversity of mandarin oranges, and I take full advantage of them here. This marmalade blends cut Daisy, Sampson, Oroval, Rangpur, and the exquisite Calamondin, with a host of Satsumas, Clementines and other mandarins in the juice mix. Since the more different flavinoids a marmalade contains, the better, this one is bursting with complex flavor!

Ingredients: mandarin oranges, cane sugar, water, Meyer lemon juice. 

My version of this classic sour orange marmalade blends in a small amount of bergamot orange for its perfume, and Meyer lemon, which has some orange parentage, for complexity. An English friend has dreams of this.

Ingredients: cane sugar, Seville oranges, Bergamot oranges, water, orange juice, Meyer lemon juice
8 oz.

The berry-like tang of deeply colored blood oranges from the DeSantis family is here blended with their Seville oranges and some fine pear vinegar to balance the sweetness of this fruit. For those who lean towards a sweeter marmalade, as well as those who love blood oranges.

Ingredients: Blood oranges, cane sugar, Seville oranges, water, vinegar
8 oz.

Three Rare Citrus Marmalades, limited edition of 40 sets only, numbered and signed by the artist.
 

Boxed gift set of three marmalades featuring rare citrus from the renowned Gene Lester Collection in Watsonville, California–with over 300 varieties, the largest private assemblage of citrus in the West. Due to worldwide concerns about spreading citrus pathogens this plant material will not reach this continent again, and cannot be propagated. 
 

Though it is not open to the public I am able to use its bounty and have found many favorites. There’s enough fruit to use as accents in blends, but because in most cases these are single trees, some the only ones in existence, there’s not enough to add any of them to my regular line. This is the first time I have highlighted three specimens in their own jams. Pictured on the lid as I harvested them, they are, from left to right:
 

Kinkoji Pommelo A rare hybrid from the Chinese grapefruit family of enormous sour fruits with thick perfumed skin, this large deeply colored pear-shaped fruit caught my eye, and then my nose, its peel strongly redolent of the fruit and flowers of the tropics, of mango and plumeria. It is blended here with other rare pommelos in the collection, juice from white grapefruit I harvested in Napa, and Texas lemon juice, a rare citron-like lemon from DeSantis Farms in Fresno. These compliment and bring balance to its flavor. 
 

Sampson Tangelo One of the outstanding varieties of the collection, and one of Gene’s favorites, perfect fragrant deep orange orbs with fairly thin skins, firm juicy interior flesh and few seeds, designed like an orange but with the flavor of a mandarin. This one deserves to be in the marketplace, and perhaps one day it will be. But for now, here it is alone in all its glory, with just a bit of Rangpur lime juice to cut its sweetness, the glorious color and lively orange mandarin flavor captured and preserved in a jar.  

Marrakesh Limetta This is the first year’s harvest from this rare tree, just enough for one batch of marmalade. Beautiful round, somewhat bumpy golden-yellow fruits with a distinctive dimpled point at the tip and a flavor both lemon and lime, with hints of fragrant citron, lemon verbena and fresh pine. Blended here with some Meyer lemon juice, a bit of grapefruit juice and a small amount of lime to enhance its inherent qualities, this heady lemon-lime makes for one of the finest marmalades I have ever produced.