Rhymes with Orange

I've been looking for Seville or Sour Oranges for years - I'd heard rumors of them being available locally, but usually just after the nick of time.

This year I hit the mother lode while browsing around Barbur World Foods out across from the Park & Ride Station on Barbur at Taylor's Ferry Road.  I picked up several pounds of the them while I had the opportunity. I knew I wanted to try my hand at making some marmalade and some orange liqueur.

These babies were really aromatic sitting there in the fruit bowl. They perfumed the whole house - it was a treat to walk through the front door and smell the oranges.

I had a couple of recipes for marmalade that I'd saved the links for. One of the recipes was on David Liebovitz's Blog, the other was Rose Prince's recipe on the Telegraph - a British newspaper. I don't have a clue who Rose Prince is - she may be the Martha Stewart of the United Kingdom for all I know. David Liebovitz on the other hand is a former pastry chef from Berkeley's famed Chez Panisse and a prolific writer on all things sweet.

I basically followed Ms. Prince's recipe and the only issue I have with the results is that the marmalade is a bit on the runny side. Next time I'd add some pectin. The jam firms up when it's refrigerated. It's tasty on toast or pancakes. I'm not a big jam or marmalade eater so most of this will go as gifts or get used in deserts that call for jam or jelly.

I'm much more pleased with the liqueur. It's a very aromatic and substitutes well for Cointreau or Curacao in cocktails. I've got a near lifetime supply at this point having made nearly a gallon of the stuff. It makes a mean margarita, but I thought that since in my mind the marmalade is such a British thing I needed to make a cocktail that at least sounded like it had British origins, so I whipped up a "Churchill" - probably need a bulldog and cigar to really enjoy this one!

Churchill Cocktail
1 1/2 oz Blended Scotch - I used Famous Grouse
1/2 oz Housemade Orange Liqueur or Cointreau
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/4 to 1/3 oz fresh lime juice - this is the juice of half a small lime

Shake or stir in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled cocktail glass

Housemade Orange Liqueur

Peels of  three Seville oranges - use a vegetable peeler and just take the orange part
750 ml of 100 proof vodka
10 oz evaporated cane sugar or 1 1/4 cups
5 oz water

Soak the orange peels in the vodka for two weeks - strain the extract through a coffee filter

While the extract is filtering make simple syrup from the sugar and water - mix them in a pan and bring to a boil. When it's cooled down add it to the extract and bottle it up in some 375 ml bottles - you'll get about 2 1/2 bottles out of the deal.