Kalamansi / Calamondin Marmalade a la Marketman

Orange marmalade always struck me as being a bit bitter. It seems the finest ones in the world are, in fact, rather bitter, and traditionally made using Seville oranges. Cheaper orange marmalades are often made with rinds from sweeter varieties of oranges and also contain a phenomenal amount of added sugar, not to mention food coloring. My mom was a huge fan of orange marmalade and when there wasn’t anything else for breakfast, I inevitably had a couple of pieces of toast with butter and some of her orange marmalade stash. If the source of the marmalade was an aunt in Australia or a visitor from Europe, the marmalade was the bitterish version. If it was a local grocery purchase, it was sweet and probably artificially colored. Oddly, I liked the slightly bitter version, despite an aversion to ampalaya and almost all other bitter foods at that stage of my tastebud development. As the years progressed, the only place I would come across orange marmalade was on long plane rides (front end for business) or in hotel breakfast room service trays where the marmalade came in cute little glass bottles. Oddly, I never bought any for myself.

Several months ago, while on a jam and jelly making spree, I made a mental note to try my hand at making a kalamansi or calamondin marmalade when kalamansi fruit was plentiful. I figured it would be even bitter-er than a marmalade of Seville oranges but I was willing to at least try… at most, I would have an inedible batch of marmalade and waste PHP50-70 worth of ingredients and a few hours of tinkering in the kitchen. It has always bothered me that the finest kalamansi sorbet I have ever tasted was in a Parisian sweets shop which had an ice cream chiller sitting right on the street. It was viewed to be a totally exotic flavor and I am always slightly annoyed when we do not take full advantage of the wonderful produce we have locally available, and it takes a foreign mind to use it in such a wonderful way; this sorbet had the essence of kalamansi FLAVOR, with only some of the acidic hit… During my recent market forays in Ilocos, I found fantastic looking kalamansi and a quick word with the vendor yielded her promise that she in fact grew them in her backyard (it was the only thing she was selling out of a basket) and that no, she couldn’t really afford to spray them with any insecticide…so BINGO!, here goes the first of several kalamansi experiments a la Marketman…

To make the marmalade, carefully select approximately 1/2 kilo of fresh green kalamansi without blemishes on their skin. If they have zits or acne, relegate them to your juice or squeeze on your pancit. Wash the skins of the kalamansi very well, use a vegetable brush if you are unsure about the fruit’s provenance. Remove the stem ends of the fruit and slice the fruit very thinly and place in a bowl, skins, pulp, juice, etc. Make sure you remove all of the seeds carefully; do NOT leave seeds (whole, sliced or chipped) in the mixture. Some folks use the seeds of citrus in cheese cloth added to the pulp to get more pectin, but I find that kalamansi has tons of pectin so this added step is unnecessary, in my opinion. For each cup of fruit, you should add just under a cup of water. You should have approximately 2+ cups of chopped fruit from your 1/2 kilo of kalamansi. Boil the kalamansi and water mixture for 18-20 minutes, turn off the heat and allow the kalamansi soup/mush to cool to room temperature. Place the soup into the fridge overnight or for 6-8 hours to extract maximum pectin. I cheated and only waited 4 hours of fridge time and it worked well… but you may want to be more patient.

Take the cold kalamansi soup out and place it in a small to medium sized heavy enameled pot and add about 1 and 1/4 cup sugar for every 1 cup of kalamansi soup liquid/solids. Boil this mixture at medium high heat until it reaches 220F or the setting point (technically speaking). You can best figure this out with a candy thermometer. But if, like me, you don’t have a candy thermometer, you can just wing it and I cooked the mixture for say 18-20 minutes before turning off the heat. Skim the scum on the top to the best of your ability without taking too much marmalade with it. Place this in a sterilized jar, seal it and set it on the kitchen counter to make sure the marmalade settles properly. I refrigerate my marmalade so I didn’t have to do the whole sterilize the jar treatment after I put the marmalade in. The results? Utterly brilliant if I say so myself. It is on the bitter side, but the kalamansi flavor is superb. The texture is exactly as I wished for. If you don’t like bitterish flavors, don’t even think about doing this recipe. If, however, you are a fan of really good orange marmalade, you may find this kalamansi version an interesting alternative. Ideally, this marmalade should sit around in your fridge for a week or two before you eat it. I was in a hurry so I waited one night… Things always TASTE better when you make them yourself; so perhaps I am biased, but this is a good marmalade. It really bugs me no end that we can’t buy artisanally produced local products like this. I figure it only cost me PHP50 or so to make the jam, so bottled and with a nice profit margin, you should be able to buy this for say PHP195-225. I would happily pay that much if I could trust the supplier… On a piece of wheat toast with a nice chunk of melting sweet butter, this was a perfect way to start the day…