Seville orange curd

Continuing with the Seville orange theme, I found a recipe (click on the link and it's about half way down the page) for Seville Orange Curd. It comes from the UK so measurements are different; the conversions shown below are my best guesses. Their recipe makes very little so I doubled it.

Ingredients for a double batch:

4 large sweet oranges (zest)

2 tbsp of the juice of the sweet orange

10 tbsp Seville orange juice - about 4 large oranges

2 tbsp lemon juice

450g sugar - about 2 to 2¼ cups depending on which website you believe. I used 2 cups.

230g butter - 1 cup

4 eggs

Containers to hold approximately 600g of curd

• Put the rind (grated carefully to avoid the pith), juice, butter and sugar in a bowl, sat in a saucepan of water.
• Turn on the hob (you can tell this recipe is not from North America) and bring the water up to a gentle bubble, stirring the contents of the bowl until the sugar has dissolved.
• Add the beaten eggs to the bowl and continue to stir. It may take up to half an hour for the curd to reach the consistency of custard. It is ready when the mix will stick to the back of a metal spoon.
• Take off the heat, leave to cool slightly and then spoon into sterile containers. 

All Seville oranges are not created equal. The large oranges in the foreground came from the Root Cellar. Later in the season, some of the Seville oranges at the Thrifty's store were quite small.

This shows how much juice I squeezed from four Seville oranges. Three weren't enough to yield 10 tablespoons' worth.

My makeshift double boiler - a pot inside a larger pot of water.

The recipe doesn't mention tempering the eggs. I found it worked better to add the beaten eggs to the mix and heat it all up together. Still, I strained the mixture - twice for good measure.

Even though the liquid sticks to the back of the spoon (not shown) and is thickening, I'd still like it a little thicker.

The curd can be jarred, although I understand it doesn't last as long as jam, and you can make tarts or pies with it. I did attempt, once, to carry on to make the pie mentioned in the recipe but my pie shell and meringue were disasters.

One day, I should make lemon curd and see if I can taste any difference between it and the orange curd.

http://www.countrylife.co.uk/blogs/article/529529/Perfect-Seville-orange-marmalade-recipe.html

First attempt at making marmalade

Until recently, I didn't know what a Seville orange was. I became intrigued when a friend was making marmalade and I learned that this seedy, bitter orange has a short winter season. Marmalade-making, then, is not something to be put off until June; in fact, some stores in town were out of Seville oranges by mid February. So, there was some urgency to try my hand at making marmalade if I was going to do it... even though I don't really care for the stuff and eat it only once in a blue moon.

Why Seville oranges? They have a higher pectin content than sweet oranges. (The different colours here are simply due to the lighting.)

Following my friend's recipe, I began with one lemon, one regular (sweet) orange, and six large Seville oranges. Also white sugar.

A lot of work is involved - depithing and cutting the peels into thin strips, boiling and stirring.

It's not a huge yield for all that work, but look at that beautiful dark amber colour. My marmalade was very thick, maybe a little too thick, and the peels were a bit 'al dente'. To my surprise, I quite liked it!

A new cook book

Glenn bought me one of Nigella Lawson's cook books. Since her banana bread recipe is the only one I've found that works for me, hopes were high for these recipes. I've tried three so far.

Chicken and Cashew Nut Curry

Little green chillies are too hot (euw - horrible!) for us so I used only a tiny amount. I left out the cilantro and garlic because we don't like them and the cardamom pods because the store didn't have any. Otherwise I followed the recipe. Into the frying pan went the onions, ginger, turmeric, cumin, coriander, coconut milk, etc. It looked like an omelette (inset photo).

Lessons: Green beans and cashews always seem to work well together. I hate cumin. We liked this dish except for the spices.

Ricotta Hotcakes

They just sound good. And what fortune - here is another chance to use peanut oil, which we'd bought for the last recipe. More than a cup of ricotta cheese to 3/4 of a cup of flour seems like a lot of ricotta but I guess that's normal. Even though the electric pan was on the highest setting, these took ages to cook and then they were doughy inside. Yuck.

Lesson: I still can't make pancakes. I obviously didn't spend much time on the photo - these went into the garbage can in short order.

Lemon Cupcakes

Simple recipe using self-rising flour. The cupcakes were more dense than usual types. Perhaps they could have used a little less time in the oven. I know the mint leaves don't really go but jellied lemon halves were supposed to decorate the tops. If only I could have found some in a grocery store.

Lesson: My favourite part is the icing, which was just icing sugar and lemon juice.

Like many cook books, some of the recipes have unusual ingredients. Where on earth can I find sumac and za'atar?

Squash soup revisited

Our squash soup recipe calls for butternut squash (along with curry power, pear, onions, chicken broth, apple juice and a pinch of salt) but I still wanted to try another type of squash just to see if there would be any difference.

At a farm market we picked up a Hubbard Squash. In the world of squash, this one wouldn't win a beauty contest.

Not only is the skin warty looking, it is tough as nails. Now I know that the hubbard's "extra-hard skin makes it one of the best keeping winter squashes." Cutting into it reminded me of trying to crack into a coconut. With no machete on hand, Glenn used a saw to cut it into 3 chunks. Then we roasted it in the oven in an attempt to soften it up. It smelled horrid while baking.

But the soup turned out surprisingly good, much the same as the butternut. In a blind-folded taste test, I'm not sure I could tell one from the other. (We could make it more soup-like but we like it really thick like this.)

Ambercup / Butternut

Previously we had tried the two types shown above. The butternut squash probably is the logical choice for this soup.

Butternut squash soup variation

For our second attempt we altered the recipe slightly. Instead of adding curry we used nutmeg and chopped ginger. We used a bit too much squash so it was still very thick. There isn't much difference between the two soups, but we both agreed - the curry wins.

First soup - Butternut squash

Believe it or not, we have never tried making soup... and I never thought my first would be a vegetable one. This soup consists mainly of squash along with some pear, onions and curry powder. Very thick and quite good! Next time we'll leave out the blob of sour cream though. It doesn't need it and why add the fat?