Pear-fig marmalade

Arriving at the local vegetable and fruit shop Saturday morning, I was thrilled to see they had some class 2 pears again for a very reasonable price. I had been looking for those for a while to try pear-fig marmalade. They had some about two months ago, but since I still had a whole bunch of plums back then, I decided to make pear-plum marmalade. In the following weeks they had lots of class 2 apples (some of which ended in different marmalades or pies), but no more pears. I was starting to fear that the pear-fig marmalade, which I never tried before, would have to wait until next fall.

After quartering, peeling and coring the pears, and getting rid of the bad spots, I had some 2 kilos (4 lbs.) left. I sliced them as thin as possible; I took 500 grams (1 lbs.) of dried figs which I soaked in water for about two hours. I used just enough water to cover them, and added the figs and the water to the pears. An equal amount of sugar complemented the ingredients.

This all was brought slowly to boiling temperature. After one hour gently boiling I started checking the pear slices, normally the marmalade is ready when those get translucent. It took roughly another 45 minutes, before 13 jars could be filled.

The results are amazingly good, the quantities of pears and figs are nicely balanced, and in taste they complement each other. I will definitely make this one again!

Clementine whiskey confiture

Last Sunday I accompanied my wife to a local market, here in France where we are staying for the holidays. It was nice, though a bit cold. Lots of local produce on the stands, including different kinds of honey, dried sausages, regional cheese variants etc. There were a couple of fruit stands as well and we ended up with a rather large bag of clementine mandarins.

To finish of the year, and the bag of clementines, I decided to make some nice marmelade with them today. I quartered them and cut the parts into small pieces. I weighted them, and added the same amount in sugar. I had ended up with 1 kg (2 lbs.), so 1 kg of sugar -- and I added 150 mls (roughly 10 tablespoons) of water. After cutting as much of the white stuff as possible of half the peels, I cut them up into zests and added them to the slowly warming sugar and clementine parts. Quickly brining it all to a boil, and then bioloing for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

For the last 10 minutes I added a similar amount of whiskey as I had added water. The result is 6 nice pots of confiture, one of which I will be enjoying for New Years Eve!!! To be a bit ahead of time, I labled them with etiquittes dates Jan. 1st 2009.