Bittersweet Symphony

As it's month of the citrus fruit on the road to hell and sweetness this January, that means I'm creating delicious sweets with all kinds of citrus fruits in the first month of this new year. From kumquat and grapefruit to my al time favourite bergamot from the north of Italy. If I could, I would use them all but sadly enough I can't, but lucky enough that means there will be plenty of citrus fruits left to do it all over again next year.

After my first Citrus post of Pomelo marshmallows, I've been working on a platted dessert and one of the components of the dessert is a Agrum marmalade. I wasn't planning on posting this one item separately and was just going to post a story with recipes from the dessert when it would be finished as I would do normally, but I was afraid that this might not do the marmalade any justice cause it can be used in many ways and putting it with other recipes might make it get lost in translation. Therefore I've decided to give it a leading role in its very own blogpost.

First of all. What's Agrum? Basically it's just a fancy name for citrus fruits so for this marmalade I'm working with a mix of navel orange, lemon, blood orange, pink grapefruit, white grapefruit, kumquats and bergamot to create our distinct Agrum taste. I've used following recipe and method already for many citrus marmalades in the past, and with success. The fun thing is that's it's pretty easy to make and multifunctional. It can be used as an interior for an entremet, as a partial filling for a chocolate Bonbon or just on the side with some Chantilly and a pie of cake. But also, you can blend the marmalade shortly so small pieces remain visible in the marmalade or you could blend it completely, pass it through a chinois so you get a smooth structured, firm sort of marmalade jam, which is great for plated desserts and decorating cakes or small pastries. The recipe goes as followed:

900 gr citrus fruits
450 gr sugar
250 gr orange juice
35 gr sugar
15 gr pectine NH nappage

First things first! We blanch our citrus fruit three times with a generous pinch of salt, starting every time again from cold water. We do that because the peel of the citrus fruits can leave a nasty bitter taste and we want to avoid that by any means. A bit of bitterness is fine, even necessary in a good marmalade, but if you don't follow this simple first step then don't bother starting. Second step is to cut the triple blanched citrus fruits in about 6 to 8 pieces and throw them in a pot with the first sugar and the juice and put it on to the stove. Make sure you remove the seeds though. Bring to boil and in the meantime mix the second sugar with the pectine. Once it boils add the pectine and sugar and mix. Boil that for another 5 min before taking it of the stove. Give it a quick blend so the there are still visible pieces of citrus fruit in the marmalade with either a thermomix or a hand blender, whatever you have in you're kitchen. Pour the whole mixture in a container, cover and let it cool down in the fridge. Once cooled, it's set because of the pectine and you end up with a beautiful chunky Agrum marmalade which you can use in many different ways. For my dessert it will be made in to small quenelles on the plate but u could also use it as a layer for an entremets or a chocolate bonbon.

As I said before, I have used a mix of fruits to get to the flavour I want. If you want a different flavour, that's fine! Basically it's all up to yourself and what you prefer, mix and match the fruits as you prefer, but one thing is sure. Follow these simple steps and you end up with a great product. I hope you all agree that this recipe deserved it's own post where it could stand on its own without any other recipes stealing it's thunder. Do not expect great pictures, those are for the platted dessert but please do enjoy it, go make your own batch of marmalade and I talk to all of you soon in a next citrusy fresh January "probably february" post.