Just an idea for general PC use:

Find a smaller metal pot, or container to go inside the PC, and use water in the PC basically to pressure steam your food.

You can pressure cook any small amount of food this way. End result will be the same for you food, except you will have no burnt food. You will have a smaller pot that can go into the dish washer, or on you dinning table, or into your refrigerator.

dcarch

Thanks for this, Lee! I've been thinking about making marmalade and this recipe is just the push to get me to do it.

If I use 3 oranges and 1 or 2 lemons, can I just add the same amount (not weight) of sugar? My eyes glaze over when I try to convert grams to pounds....or whatever.

Teresa

Oh yum, that looks delicious. I like marmalade and no one else in the family does, so this would be just right for me.

Teresa, I'm the same on the conversion from grams to cups or whatever. The only people I know of here who use metrics are the drug dealers, LOL. funny, after all these years I still can't tell you how much a gram is, but I know how much two liters are, it's a large Diet Coke bottle.

Annie

Annie

DC I have used a smaller pot in the pressure cooker for other things - and loved the results of your suggestion to pressure steam meat, with the concentrated stock that results. I never know whether to cover the inside pot or not. I have a set of three stacking SS Indian pots that fit inside my largest pressure cooker and a much larger pot that fits in as a single piece. The same flat lid fits both the stack and the single pot. So to cover or not inside the pressure cooker? I'd like to be able to successfully cook small amounts of rice this way. Getting back to the fruit, I'm not sure if there would be an overall advantage to the pot in pan method here because once you cook the peel you add all the sugar and bring it to a boil until it reaches 212 degrees, so you would still have the stickiest part in the PC. My pressure cookers have very thick laminated bottoms and burning food is not an issue.

Teresa, I don't know! I used very differently shaped containers for my lemon slices and for the sugar so I'm not at all sure how the volume compares. I can tell you that a cup of white sugar weighs a little over 7 ounces so if you weighed your oranges and lemons together at the market and took off a little for the cut off ends of the fruit you would have an idea. Or if you have a scale at home and want to try this, just post the weight of the fruit and I can estimate the sugar for you. The method here is that you cook the fruit, and start with something close to double the weight of sugar, stir it in and taste, adding more sugar if you think it is not sweet enough. I was happy with just a little less than twice the weight of sugar to fruit, the recipe suggest twice the weight as a starting point. This recipe is so fast and easy that if it isn't right with a small quantity of fruit, the worst that can happen is that you end up with a syrup with pieces of peel which would certainly be good for lots of things. When I us the recipe again I'll pay more attention and let you know.

Annie, you may know if most fruit preserve recipes use an equal volume of sugar and fruit. The amount that I did definitely took less than thirty minutes from washing the lemons to putting the filled jars in a HWB so not a lot time is involved to experiment. And the results are good!

Lee

Lee, my food scale went kaput way before its time, so I will have to measure by volume rather than weight. I'll try to weigh the fruit at the store.

I have found some good brands of orange marmalade at TJ Maxx's of all places, but when something is very yummy, I always think about making it myself.

Teresa

This looks wonderful! I had no idea the seeds were used for extra flavor

Lee, I made the marmalade this afternoon using 3 big navel oranges and 1 lemon - no seeds in any of them. Don't think I have ever had a lemon that didn't have seeds in it!

I ended up with 1 qt. of chopped fruit and I used 5 cups of sugar. I had a hard time getting the temp up to 212F. But it did set up for me, I think. The flavor is good even if I did have some scorched peel and quite a bit that stuck to the bottom. I just tasted some that had cooled down and it is very good. I got 3 half-pint jars and 4 half-cup little jars plus a serving or two in a glass bowl for the cook.

Thanks again for this method - I'll probably make it again.

Teresa

Yum, I have some Meyer lemons in the freezer that will have to go into marmalade or limoncello, so I will definitely have to try this.

I'm very cavalier about proportions, I chop up some fruit, eyeball it, add an equal amount of sugar or less, cook it until thick. If it doesn't jell, I cook it longer and it's fruit butter, LOL, but it takes a LOT of stirring and cooking and spattering of little hot fruit volcanoes.

This looks so much easier and faster, I'm going to try it after Easter. Tonight I'm canning some habanero peach hot sauce, Elery and I have been working on the recipe, so it's about the 5th or 6th version but it's coming along and all the prior batches got eaten, so it's pretty good, LOL.

Annie

Teresa that sounds delicious. I looked for Valencia oranges at the market today (didn't like the ones I saw) and almost bought a five pound bag of Clementines, but didn't really want that much. I wanted a less sweet fruit than Navel oranges although I love them for eating. I suppose a little bit of grapefruit peel could also be added to change the flavor. Oh well! I did buy half a dozen thin skinned Mexican limes that I can use with more of the Meyer lemons I have. I didn't have any problems with scorching or sticking, but my pressure cookers have thick laminated bottoms. So basically you had 4 cups of sliced fruit and five cups of sugar, is that right? How long did you pressure cook the fruit and did you add any water? I have also read, from another source but I'm not sure where, that letting marmalade sit for a month enhances it's flavor. Hmmm, not sure I can wait but I haven't opened any of my jars yet.

Annie, I wish I had the skill to eyeball more things. I hope when you try this you'll let us know how it goes.

Lee

Correct: 4 cups prepared fruit/juice and 5 cups sugar, cooked under pressure with 1 cup water for 10 minutes.

I got the fruit/sugar mixture up to a good boil and got it as high as 210F but that took longer than 5 minutes and I may have overcooked it - NO I'm SURE I overcooked it. But I fished out the few dark pieces of peel and it tastes sweet enough to me. Guess I'd rather have stiff marmalade instead of orange syrup.

Two of my oranges were rather thin skinned but the third was not. I tried slicing them on my mandolin, but that was not entirely successful. Next time I may use only 4 cups of sugar if the oranges are sweeter.

Teresa - who is letting her chutney "age" but is not sure she can do the same for the marmalade!

Teresa, marmalade does benefit from aging, because sometimes it takes a couple of weeks just to "set up". It still tastes the same to me, it's just thicker!

Lee, I think it's because I learned to cook from Grandma and because I spent my entire high school years working in a chicken and submarine joint. By the time you build a zillion sub sandwiches with EXACTLY 4 ounces of cheese and 2 ounces of salami and 3 ounces of ham, no more and no less, you kind of figure out what 4 ounces is, what it looks like and how it feels, LOL yeah, isn't it grand, what I learned in high school? (grin)

I also can break a whole chicken down into 9 pieces in 2 minutes or less and I know just what 2 pounds feels like. It was half of our average chicken, or 4 pieces. One leg, one wing, one thigh, one breast. 2 pounds, before breading!

Annie