Take half a peck of walnuts before they be hard shelled, and stamp them in a mortar, put them into an earthen pot with half a pound of salt, stir them every day for six weeks then press the liquor off, and to every quart put cloves, mace, ginger, nutmeg white and black pepper each one dram, and an quarter of an ounce of shallots, boil them in an quarter of an hour, then put it into a pot and cover it and let it stand ten days then strain it off and put to it half a pint of wine and a quarter of a pound of anchovies, boil it ten minutes when it is cold bottle it off.
—from an 18th century Irish cookbook manuscript
Making marmalades, jams, and preserves is a time-honored autumn activity, and slovenly was the homemaker who wasn’t making her marmalade herself. (In fact, at my house, it was my dad who took jam-making very seriously—so much for old stereotypes!) Nowadays, there are excellent, high-quality jams and marmalades readily available at any store, and it seems every Christmas brings a new hamper full of beautiful jars of chutneys and preserves. But not all store-bought jam is good, of course. I try to buy jars with labels saying the contents were made by hand in someone’s farm kitchen down the country.
Or, I make it myself. The only way to truly know what’s in your jam is to do it at home, and making small batches is fast and surprisingly easy. It only becomes an enormous kitchen melodrama if you’re trying to process fifteen or twenty pounds of fruit. My rule of thumb is to prepare only enough of something to store in the refrigerator, making a few cups at a time. If you’re only making two cups of jam, it’s no big deal, and you get to skip the arduous steps of canning and processing.
Seville oranges are preferred for marmalade because they have the perfect blend of citrus and bitterness. Good marmalade—unlike, say, good strawberry jam—should be much more than one-note sweetness. That edge of bitterness—not too much, not too little—is highly prized by marmalade lovers.
In Ireland, you can buy large tins of cooked-down fruit you turn into a pan, add sugar, and cook into many, many jars of marmalade or jam. That’s because it’s the prepping of the fruit that can take so long. Even in this recipe, the oranges must be boiled for a long time to soften the rind. A good rule to remember for jam-making is slow-cooking before adding the sugar, fast boiling after. Then your final product tastes fresh and fruity, not “cooked” and sugary.
Seville oranges do show up in American markets, at high prices, for about five minutes every year. If you miss that window, substitute three oranges and a lemon, or a small pink grapefruit to get the hint of bitterness. It’s a good and workable substitute.
Makes about 3½ cups
1 pound (about 5 or 6) Seville oranges (or 5 Valencia or other thin-skinned oranges and 1 lemon or small pink grapefruit)
4 cups sugar
1 Scrub the rind of the fruit and put it, whole, into a large saucepan with cold water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat, and then reduce heat slightly and simmer rapidly, topping up the water now and then as needed, for about two hours, until the oranges are soft and the rind can easily be pierced with a fork.
2 Lift the cooked oranges out of the cooking liquid, keeping the liquid in the pot. Let the oranges cool enough to handle. Then cut them up and discard the seeds and any large hunks of membrane. Chop all the flesh, catching and reserving as much juice as you can, and slice the rind up into fine shreds (or slightly thicker chunks if you prefer your marmalade that way).
3 Return all the chopped fruit and juices to the cooking liquid and cook at a medium boil over medium-high heat until the liquid has reduced by about one third and, more importantly, the temperature has reached 222 degrees F. A candy and jam thermometer that stays in the pot is immensely useful (and inexpensive), but you can also keep testing with an instant-read thermometer. It will hover just below 222 for a long time, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, as the water evaporates. Just keep an eye on it as the temperature will suddenly shoot upward.
4 While the fruit is cooking, preheat the oven to 200 degrees F and spread the sugar on a rimmed baking sheet. Heat the sugar while the fruit cooks, just to heat it through but not melt (see Heating Sugar).
5 Carefully add the hot sugar to the pot and bring it to a rapid boil. Cook hard for 20 to 25 minutes, until the marmalade sets. You can tell it has set when a teaspoon of marmalade on a saucer makes a wrinkled skin as you blow on it. Ladle into two clean glass pint jars and cool completely before sealing and storing in the refrigerator where it will stay good for 6 months or longer.
I see blackcurrants for sale in gourmet markets sometimes in the United States, and they’re so expensive I shelve my jam dreams again for a while. We eat a lot of blackcurrants in Ireland, where they grow very well; so many people have a bush, or several, in their back gardens. Redcurrants are milder and tarter, but fresh blackcurrants already taste like jam even when they’re fresh. When they become jam, the result is intense: deep, dark purple, darker than grape jelly, with a strong, tart sweetness and a memorable, lasting flavor.
Makes about 3 cups
4 cups fresh blackcurrants, picked over, stems removed
1 cup water
3 cups sugar
1 Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. Spread the sugar on a rimmed baking sheet and put it in the oven to heat.
2 Put the blackcurrants and water in a large saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer, and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender.
3 Stir the heated sugar into the jam. Raise the heat to medium high and bring the jam to a boil. Boil rapidly, stirring several times, for 5 minutes. Spoon the jam into two clean jars and cool completely. Store in the refrigerator for up to a month.
Heating Sugar
Experienced Irish jam makers always heat their sugar before adding it to the fruit. The reasoning is that hot sugar added to the already cooking fruit doesn’t delay the process. It brings the boiling jam to temperature much quicker so it can set faster and the fruit doesn’t have that overcooked taste some jams have. And in a side-by-side taste test, you truly can tell the difference between, say, strawberry jam that was long-boiled with its “cooked” jammy taste, and the fresh, berry-ish strawberry flavor of jam made with heated sugar, which boiled for no longer than five minutes. To heat sugar, preheat the oven to 200 degrees F, spread the sugar on a rimmed baking sheet, and heat for 15 to 20 minutes, until hot through but not at all melted.
When I was growing up, my father kept a big garden where raspberries grew particularly well. We were never short of them, to eat with sugar and cream, to top meringues or tarts, or to make jam. Like strawberry jam, raspberry jam is almost laughably simple: berries, sugar, a squeeze of lemon. The only difficulty—and you may not consider it a problem—is that it’s so full of seeds. I don’t like raspberry jam completely seedless, but I do like it a little less seedy, so I strain half the jam through a fine metal sieve. This recipe goes light on the sugar. If you want it sweeter, add up to another cup of sugar during cooking.
Makes about 3½ cups
6 cups fresh red raspberries
2 cups sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1 Put the berries in a wide, heavy-bottomed saucepan and mash them coarsely with a potato masher.
2 Place the pot over medium heat and bring to a boil. Cook it hard for 1 to 2 minutes, then stir in the sugar.
3 Return to a boil and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.
4 If you like, strain half (or all) the jam through a metal sieve, pushing the jam through with the back of a spoon and discarding the seeds. You may have to scrape and stir in the sieve to move the jam along. If you’re only straining half the jam, stir the strained jam back into the pot.
5 Divide the jam between two clean pint jars (it won’t quite fill them). Allow to cool, cover tightly, and store in the refrigerator for up to four weeks.
In October, all along the roads in Ireland, the brambles, as we call blackberries, have ripened in the hedgerows. You can stop your car on a country road and pluck a whole bucketful of them in a very short time. An apple is a typical addition, bringing some much-needed natural pectin to what would otherwise be quite a runny jam. Pushing it through a metal sieve is important because otherwise it’s too seedy.
Makes about 2 cups
1 pound ripe blackberries
1 sweet apple, peel on
cup water
2 cups sugar
1 Put the berries in a large, heavy saucepan. Cut the apple into quarters, discarding the core and seeds, and put the quarters into the pan. Add the water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer gently until the fruit is soft—so soft the apple peel comes off the quarters, 30 to 40 minutes.
2 Push the fruit through a metal sieve into a clean medium saucepan, being sure to scrape all the purée off the bottom of the sieve. Stir in the sugar and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil the jam hard until it starts to thicken, 10 to 15 minutes. Turn into a clean pint jar and let cool. Keep in the refrigerator for up to a month.
Irish strawberries are so sweet. Apparently berries don’t like a lot of sun and do like a lot of rain, because what we lack in tomatoes and basil and melons, we more than make up for in raspberries, blackberries, red and blackcurrants, and strawberries. True Irish-grown strawberries are, of course, seasonal, but the short period in summer when they’re flowing through markets is the perfect time to make this jam, which is super easy. Keep it in the fridge for several months to spread on scones with a dollop of cream. This is a soft and runny jam, more like a conserve, without pectin and all the more natural tasting for it. I do not boil it until it “sets” because I prefer the fresher flavor. Stirring in lemon juice at the very end brightens the taste and keeps the jam from being cloying. If you want a firmer jam, boil it for as long as 15 minutes in Step 3, until a teaspoon on a saucer forms a wrinkled “skin” on top when you blow on it.
Makes about 3½ cups
6 cups sliced fresh strawberries
¼ cup water
2½ cups sugar
Juice of 1 lemon
1 Hull the strawberries, slicing them if they’re large, and place them in a large saucepan. Crush them roughly with a potato masher.
2 Stir in the water and place the pan over medium-low heat. As the juices begin to flow, increase the heat slightly to bring the strawberries to a gentle simmer. A pinkish-gray scum will begin to rise. Use a wide metal spoon to lift it off onto a saucer. At our house, this is the cook’s treat, to be shared with any passing children (and you may be surprised how many children start to pass through the kitchen as the smell of strawberry jam begins to float through the house).
3 When the scum stops rising, add the sugar (heated or not, as you prefer) and bring to a rolling boil. Cook it hard at full boil for about 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and stir in the juice of the lemon. Ladle into two clean glass pint jars. Cool completely before sealing and storing in the refrigerator for up to two months.
Every spring, big pink stalks of rhubarb begin to appear on market stalls with signs that say, “Irish Rhubarb” and “Irish-grown!” We prize rhubarb highly for crumbles and jams, and we feel strongly the local stuff is best. Many families have a rhubarb patch in their gardens, and it’s one of the most rewarding things you can grow. Once it’s established, you don’t have to do anything to it, and every year it comes back again and again, a veritable dessert plant giving freely of itself in your back garden.
To make it set up firmly like jam, you need to add apples or gooseberries, something with more pectin. A very soft rhubarb topping is delicious, however, more like a conserve than a firm jam. This recipe makes one jar of gingery, tart jam, greenish and faintly streaked with pink that is bliss on hot buttered toast.
Makes 2 cups
3 cups sliced rhubarb (from about 1 pound of stalks)
1 cup sugar
½ cup candied ginger in syrup, chopped fine
1 Put the rhubarb in a large saucepan with the sugar and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Simmer gently until the rhubarb is softened and falling apart, and the mixture is thickened, about 15 to 20 minutes.
2 Stir the chopped ginger and its syrup into the rhubarb. Ladle into a clean, glass pint jar and let cool completely before sealing. Store in the refrigerator, where it will last about 2 weeks.
Leave out the ginger and add the zest of 1 orange instead.
Leave out the ginger and add 1/2 cup raisins to the pot along with the rhubarb and sugar.
In my childhood, a jar of lemon curd was a great treat. My dad liked it so he often brought some home, and we’d try to eat as much of it as we could spread on hot buttered toast before he clapped the lid on the jar. It’s so easy to make at home I wonder why, intrepid cook that he was, he used to buy it. It’s kind of like the filling for a lemon meringue pie, but while the pie filling has cornstarch as a base, lemon curd has butter as a base. You can make good lime curd by swapping in an equal amount of lime juice and zest instead of lemon, but orange curd is oddly unsuccessful—perhaps not tart enough.
Makes 1 generous cupful
3 egg yolks
Zest and juice of 3 large lemons
½ cup sugar
¼ cup (½ stick) butter, cut into 4 pieces
1 Put the egg yolks, lemon zest and juice, and the sugar in a heatproof bowl. Set it over a pot of simmering water, being sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl. Whisk until thickened and lightened in color, about 10 minutes.
2 Remove from heat and whisk in the butter, one piece at a time.
3 Turn into a bowl or a clean jar. Cover and let cool. The curd will thicken as it cools. Store for up to two weeks in the refrigerator.
Sometimes called onion compote, this typical Irish condiment is sweet and sour, almost like a chutney. (The addition of a handful of raisins would make it even more so.) However, the texture is less chunky than chutney, making onion marmalade more spreadable and definitely multi-purpose. Cold out of the jar, it’s a great relish on cheese or beef sandwiches, and it’s an ideal accompaniment to pâté (not to mention foie gras). You can also add a dollop to meat soups or sauces, or spread it on top of a grilled chicken breast. Warmed slightly and smeared on hot buttered toast, it’s a snack that will make your toes curl with pleasure.
Makes about 2 cups
4 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 cup sugar
2 cups apple cider vinegar
½ cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 Combine all ingredients in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to very low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 45 to 60 minutes, until onions are tender and marmalade is thick.
2 Taste and adjust seasoning before storing in a glass jar. This will keep in the refrigerator for more than a month.
My dad liked to make green tomato chutney, and I surmise now it was because we rarely got enough sun in summer to ripen the tomatoes in our garden! Even so, the chutney went down well on cheese sandwiches or as a condiment alongside curries, fried fish, roast chicken, or with ham. It’s sweet, tangy, pungent, and bright—everything you need to perk up your taste buds. This makes a small enough quantity to store in the fridge and use up fast so you don’t have to process it in a canning bath.
Makes about 3 cups
1 pound green tomatoes (4 to 5 medium tomatoes), cored and diced
1 large red onion, chopped
2 cups white vinegar
1 cup golden raisins
1 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 Put all the ingredients in a large, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 50 to 60 minutes, until the tomato and onion are tender and the sauce is thickened. (If it thickens too fast, reduce the heat and add a little bit of water.)
2 Spoon into a quart jar or a couple of pint jars, seal, and refrigerate for up to a month.
Spice Turnover
For the best flavor, be sure to use very fresh cloves. The Irish use cloves frequently, in drinks such as hot whiskey and especially in holiday baking, so the jars sitting in their cabinets have a higher turnover rate and tend to be very fresh. When you open your cloves, you should smell a fresh, pungent, spicy whiff, not a faded scent.
This is another food that is consumed throughout the British Isles, not just in Ireland, but it’s definitely a favorite in Ireland, served with sliced ham or boiled bacon. It’s a creamy white sauce made of white breadcrumbs and milk that’s been infused with onion, cloves, and bay leaves. The flavor is subtle but no less potent for that. Bread sauce is common enough that you can buy it in packets, but there’s nothing like the homemade version. Be sure to use a good, hearty white bread without sugar, not a sweetened processed variety.
Makes about 2 cups
1 medium yellow onion
10 whole cloves
1½ cups milk
½ cup heavy cream
1 bay leaf
¾ cup fresh white bread crumbs
2 tablespoons butter
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Peel and halve the onion. Stud the cut side of each half with 5 cloves. Put the onion halves in a large saucepan and cover with the milk, cream, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then instantly turn off the heat, put a lid on the pot, and leave for 15 minutes.
2 Remove and discard the onion halves and the bay leaf. Stir in the bread crumbs, beating until thick and smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve warm.
If you’re not serving Parsley Sauce with bacon, this is the other go-to sauce. The onions are not browned and caramelized, just softened very slowly in butter so when flour and milk are added, they make a gentle, very aromatic white sauce. It’s also excellent with Roast Leg of Lamb or Grilled Lamb Chops as a change from Mint Sauce.
Makes about 2½ cups
¼ cup (½ stick) butter
2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons flour
1½ cups milk
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper
1 In a large saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Stir in the onions to coat with butter, then cover the pan with a lid and cook for 12 to 15 minutes until the onions are completely tender but not at all browned. Check them once or twice. If the onions are browning, move the pan off the heat and add a tablespoon of water. Stir to cool slightly, then reduce the heat and continue cooking.
2 Sprinkle the flour over the onions, stirring to combine. Add the milk slowly, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Bring the milk to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer very gently for 3 to 4 minutes. Season with nutmeg, salt, and plenty of black pepper.
The chicken stock and lemon juice elevate this from just being white sauce with green stuff. It has a delicate flavor that brings out the natural sweetness in boiled bacon, sliced ham, or fish.
Makes about 3 cups
¼ cup (½ stick) butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
1 cup chicken stock
cup finely chopped fresh parsley leaves
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt and pepper
1 In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt the butter. Add the flour and cook, stirring for 1 to 2 minutes. Do not let the butter brown.
2 Slowly add the milk and chicken stock, whisking constantly to prevent lumps from forming. Increase the heat to medium and cook, stirring for 6 to 7 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and thickened.
3 Stir in the parsley and lemon juice, and season liberally with salt and pepper.
Clockwise from top: Mint Sauce, Marie Rose Sauce, Parsley Sauce
The bright green, sweet mint jelly Americans sometimes eat with lamb is unknown in Ireland. Our mint sauce is sharp and savory, a mélange of fresh mint, vinegar, and just a little sugar. It’s also very thin, to be spooned over or alongside beautiful slices of pink lamb.
Makes about 1 cup
2 cups fresh mint, finely chopped
cup boiling water
3 tablespoons sugar
½ cup white wine vinegar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 Place mint leaves in a small bowl and pour boiling water over them. Leave to steep for about 30 minutes.
2 Add sugar, vinegar, and salt, and mix well.
Pale orange and tangy, this is the classic sauce to serve with cooked prawns, either plain boiled ones or those gorgeous deep-fried Dublin Bay Scampi. It’s mainly mayonnaise, a little ketchup, and some Tabasco. If it looks familiar to Americans, that’s because you already have a very similar sauce that goes under the name of Thousand Island Dressing. An important note: in Ireland, it’s not “Muh-REE Rose Sauce.” It’s “MARR-ee Rose Sauce.”
Makes 1 ¼ cups
1 cup mayonnaise
¼ cup ketchup
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4 to 6 drops Tabasco (or to taste)
1 Blend together. Serve at once or refrigerate.