Marmalades

“Using hard to find fruits, Robert Lambert makes some of the most interesting marmalades in America.”
Mo Frechette, Zingerman's Mail Order

"Great Britain, take note: The Californian Robert Lambert has raised the bar on marmalade, and instead of exporting your products to the U.S., you will want to import his." Karen Hochman, The Nibble

Read a review at “The Nibble” TheNibble.com

It was perhaps inevitable that I would at some point come to make marmalade, a meeting of the treasured jam-making memories of my childhood and the wealth of exotic citrus I have come to know in California. About a year ago I decided it was time. First I studied its lore and history, then read every recipe the internet, my books, my friends and colleagues could provide, then tested a few that sounded the best before bravely striking out on my own.

The basic method is that the fruit is cut and water added to soak for a time, then the mixture is boiled down before the sugar is added, then boiled down again till it reaches the setting point. What I found is that if I used a variety of the rare citrus fruits I've found, and if I replaced part of the water with a blend of compatible juices, I could spike the flavor profiles of my marmalades far beyond any others I'd ever had.

The results have garnered ecstatic responses from die-hard fans and new converts alike who are stunned by the explosion of complex flavors in the mouth. Marmalade should be a balance of sour, bitter and sweet; these have that but so much more! They showcase the exotic and rare--in some cases only a few trees exist--flavors of fruits propagated by growers and collectors who are passionate about preserving these wonders of nature.

All these marmalades are hand-crafted in small batches, as any good marmalade must be. Since the pectin that causes the jelly to set resides in the fruit's seeds as well as its pith, and many of the rare exotics I use are full of them, every seed must be located and picked out by hand as the fruit is hand-cut into its fine julienne before they are tied in a bag and added back to the fruit to cook. Many hours of skilled labor account for these products cost and value

Use these fine marmalades as usual, on toast and scones and English muffins, but also with cheese or in a meat glaze or marinade, with some soy sauce and mustard. Once you try them you'll find many ways to enjoy them, as I have.

New! Five Mandarin Marmalade
$15.00
I pick much of my fruit in the orchard of a friend who has the largest private citrus collection in America, with over 300 varieties¬. The strength of the collection is in the diversity of mandarin oranges, and I take full advantage of that here. This marmalade blends cut Daisy, Dancy, Sampson, Rangpur lime (really a sour mandarin) and Clementine mandarins with many more varieties in the juice. When it came time to pick fruit for the juice portion of this product I started throwing in fruit from all over the orchard, nearly 20 sub-types of Clementines alone, so I really lost track. Since the more flavor molecules a marmalade contains, the better, this one is bursting with complex flavor!

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

Five Grapefruit Marmalade
$15.00
This began as a grapefruit trio last year when I blended the white cocktail grapefruits I pick every year from an old tree in Napa, California, with the rare Poorman orange, an orange-grapefruit hybrid, and mandalos from a citrus collector friend near Watsonville. It became Five Grapefruit Marmalade this year when I added two more grapefruit-like exotics, trifoliates with tropical notes of passionfruit, mango and papaya–Shekwasha and Sacaton citrumelo. I also added an even greater proportion of juice in this one, and my efforts have been rewarded with a stellar marmalade, a rocket-ride of superb flavor, a long finish, gorgeous color and a perfect set.

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

Membrillo Quince Paste
$38.00
By all accounts I have managed to devise the world’s finest membrillo, or quince paste. I first encountered this food in my marmalade research, as it is the original marmalade. Quince is a pectin-rich fruit that figures in history as the original golden apples of mythology and the apple of the Garden of Eden. It looks like an apple but exudes a heady perfume and is so firm it needs cooking to be edible. In membrillo the fruit is mixed with sugar and cooked down to a thick paste. It has been made in Spain since the Middle Ages and is traditionally eaten with manchego, a fairly dry sheep’s milk cheese that is the pride of La Mancha. When the Moors brought the sour orange to Spain from North Africa it was discovered that this fruit was also high in pectin, and a similar paste was made from it that evolved into the citrus marmalades we know today.

My encounter with quince came about quite by accident. An auto repair shop was recommended to service my truck and I became friends with the owners. They became Farmer’s Market customers on the weekends they weren’t at their country place in Humboldt County, and even traded tune-ups for my products. It turned out that on their 20 acres west of Garberville they had planted a certified organic quince and apple orchard, and were entering their first years of production.

On Christmas Eve last December I thought I might actually take a full day off, but I got a call from Mike and a few hours later he showed up at my door with 500 pounds of end-of season fruit that was about to go off. I spent the next 2 weeks in a frantic race against time to process all the fruit before it decayed. But it was just what I wanted—the ripe fruit was superb, with waxy deeply colored yellow skin and a heavenly scent.

Making membrillo is an arduous task. It takes me up to 17 hours to produce one 20-pound batch, from preparing the fruit to constantly stirring the volcanic mass as I boil it, bound up in gloves and gauntlets, to hours more of baking. Reduce, reduce. But my result, after a few trials, is far superior to any other version on the market, including imports, and has found great success in the fine cheese shops that now carry it.

Enjoy my membrillo traditionally, sliced, atop manchego cheese, or try any firm salty cheese. You can also add a bit to meat sauces to thicken and add a fruity note.
Ingredients: quince, sugar, yuzu lemon, Texas lemon

Available in 1-pound and quarter-pound quantities.

Membrillo Quince Paste quarter-pound
$10.00
By all accounts I have managed to devise the world’s finest membrillo, or quince paste. I first encountered this food in my marmalade research, as it is the original marmalade. Quince is a pectin-rich fruit that figures in history as the original golden apples of mythology and the apple of the Garden of Eden. It looks like an apple but exudes a heady perfume and is so firm it needs cooking to be edible. In membrillo the fruit is mixed with sugar and cooked down to a thick paste. It has been made in Spain since the Middle Ages and is traditionally eaten with manchego, a fairly dry sheep’s milk cheese that is the pride of La Mancha. When the Moors brought the sour orange to Spain from North Africa it was discovered that this fruit was also high in pectin, and a similar paste was made from it that evolved into the citrus marmalades we know today.

My encounter with quince came about quite by accident. An auto repair shop was recommended to service my truck and I became friends with the owners. They became Farmer’s Market customers on the weekends they weren’t at their country place in Humboldt County, and even traded tune-ups for my products. It turned out that on their 20 acres west of Garberville they had planted a certified organic quince and apple orchard, and were entering their first years of production.

On Christmas Eve last December I thought I might actually take a full day off, but I got a call from Mike and a few hours later he showed up at my door with 500 pounds of end-of season fruit that was about to go off. I spent the next 2 weeks in a frantic race against time to process all the fruit before it decayed. But it was just what I wanted—the ripe fruit was superb, with waxy deeply colored yellow skin and a heavenly scent.

Making membrillo is an arduous task. It takes me up to 17 hours to produce one 20-pound batch, from preparing the fruit to constantly stirring the volcanic mass as I boil it, bound up in gloves and gauntlets, to hours more of baking. Reduce, reduce. But my result, after a few trials, is far superior to any other version on the market, including imports, and has found great success in the fine cheese shops that now carry it.

Enjoy my membrillo traditionally, sliced, atop manchego cheese, or try any firm salty cheese. You can also add a bit to meat sauces to thicken and add a fruity note.
Ingredients: quince, sugar, yuzu lemon, Texas lemon