Lime marmalade Incinerade
Still have more fruit than I can use, so I made some lime marmalade. Added a pile of Habanero chillies as well, so it's pretty hot. Not sure what i'll use it for ... it's more like a lime + chillie jelly with a bit of bitterness.
Got of the infernal machines yesterday and got a bit productive in general, also did 3 loads of washing, mowed the lawn, started brewing some beer ...
Ingredients
| 500g | Finely sliced ripe limes (mine are yellow on the outside with a very thin skin, lime-green on the inside, and very juicy). |
| 40g | Finely sliced Habanero chillies (this is a TON of heat) |
| 60g | Grated ginger |
| 600ml | Water (i.e. equal weight to fruit) |
| 600g | Sugar (i.e. equal weight to fruit) |
| Pips from some other pippy citrus. I used half a dozen kumquats which are loaded with large seeds. |
Method
- Place the lime, chillies, ginger and water in a pot and soak overnight.
- Wrap the pips in some chux and tie up, place in the pot and bring to the boil.
- Simmer for at least 30 minutes.
- Pour in the sugar and stiry until dissolved (I initially removed the pips at this point, but as it took forever to set I put them back).
- Simmer until it sets on a plate in the freezer, 30 minutes plus. It's supposed to skin when pushed.
- Pour into sterlised jars and seal while still hot. Makes about 4.5 250ml jars.
I had trouble geting the 'plate set test' to work - and ended up simmering it for a bit over an hour. But when I went to bottle it it started to stick in my funnel after the first jar and it turned solid enough to turn upside-down as soon as it cooled off a bit. In short I think I cooked it a bit longer than I needed to, but not enough to hurt it (made it a bit more orange coloured than it would otherwise have been).
Initially I only put 40g of habaneros, but I thought I may as well make it worth the effort and grabbed a few more from the freezer as I was cooking it.
Results
Has a nice sweet and intensely lime flavour with a generous hint of marmalade bitterness. It set solid - like jelly - although it is cloudy (mostly from the ginger pulp I guess).
The habanero chillies add a big kick - that gets more intense with each drop as they usually do. I had some tiny amount with kabana and cheese on crackers and it worked pretty well. Yet to try it on toast with coffee ..
It looks and smells like a nice sweet marmalade, but a corn-kernel sized piece is enough to set your whole mouth afire.