curd – Deja Food

Buttered Oranges

For the past several years I have been making a searchable index of the digitised household books held at The Wellcome Library. In doing so, I’ve read over 300 manuscripts and logged more than 32,000 food and drink recipes and have a ‘To Do list of interesting recipes as long as my arm.

‘Buttering’ was exceedingly popular in times past, and was applied to numerous dishes: crab, chickens, rolls, loaves, turnips, rice, salmon… For the most part, this consists of a healthy slathering of butter over the dish in question. Buttered Oranges, however, stands apart, since it’s not a pairing that seems obvious. So it was that this year, in the midst of a Seville orange flurry of kitchen activity, I grabbed a net of sweet oranges and determined that Buttered Oranges would be promoted to the top of the To Do list with immediate effect.

Buttered Orange recipe, circa 1750, MS1357, Wellcome Library Collection

I re-read all of the recipes from the collection that I could find, and they were all pretty similar. I selected this one because of the novel presentation suggestion, which is to serve the buttered oranges in candied orange peels. Completely optional, of course, but it does make for an eye-catching dessert.

Which hopefully makes up for what might possibly be a bit of a let-down, because it turns out that Buttered Oranges is pretty much what we today would call a fruit curd: juice and zest, sweetened and thickened with eggs with a generous, but not excessive, quantity of butter melted in.

After experimentation, I found the best way to present this dessert was to make each element separately and then assemble before serving. I felt the original recipe’s instruction to bake the filled oranges until set was a little too risky and prone to mishap to risk all the preparation, but don’t let that deter you from trying it for yourself – I would just advise against a spur of the moment decision during an important social occasion.

Preparing the peels

I chose blood oranges to serve the curd in, as they were a beautiful colour and relatively small, thus being perfect for serving elegant portions of this rich dessert.

1 orange per person
1kg caster sugar
1 litre water

Before you start, you should make a decision on how you will be preparing the peels. The original recipe says to zest the oranges, slice off the top, hollow out the flesh, then simmer in water until tender, then finish in syrup. This gives the skins a pale, almost pastel colouring, which is delightful, and means the whole of the orange is put to good use but also makes them rather fragile during the cooking. One solution would be to tie them lightly in muslin or cheesecloth, to protect them, or alternately, use un-zested oranges, which will have a darker colour, but are also much more robust and less likely to split during the cooking. The results of both are illustrated in the photograph at the top, the zested peels on the right, the un-zested on the left. If you choose to use un-zested oranges, then you will need twice as many oranges overall.

If you’re zesting the oranges, do that now and reserve the zest for later.
Slice a lid off the top of each orange, and scoop out the insides using a combination of sharp knife and teaspoon. Reserve the flesh and juice for later.
Make sure there’s no orange flesh or fibres left inside.
Place the hollowed oranges and their lids into a saucepan of cold water, making sure the water fills the cavities.
Slowly bring the water to a boil, then turn the heat down and simmer until tender. This will take about 1.5-2 hours.
Change the water and scrub the pan every 30 minutes to remove the bitter oil.
When the peels are tender enough to be pierced by a toothpick, make a syrup by dissolving the sugar in the water over a low heat.
Add the peels and allow to simmer gently until the peel appears translucent.
Remove from the heat. The peels can remain in the syrup until required.

Buttered Oranges

As already mentioned, this is a variation of Orange Curd, so if you already have a favourite recipe, then by all means use that instead.

2 large eggs
the zest and juice from at least 4 oranges
the juice of 1 lemon
Sugar to taste
50g unsalted butter

Add the strained juices and zest to the eggs and whisk thoroughly.
Add the butter and whisk over a gentle heat until thickened.
Add sugar to taste.
To serve, you can either pour the curd into your oranges warm, or fill them and allow them to cool before serving.
I recommend serving some kind of biscuit or shortbread alongside to dip!

Vegan Lemon Curd

20th century, Preserves

This is a recipe from May Byron’s Rations Book (1918). Rationing during the WW2 is well known, but it was also introduced during the last year of the first world war. Confession time: I’ve changed the title of this recipe from the original. The original recipe is for Lemon Curd Without Eggs, which would have been a concern back then through food rationing. In this day and age, it is mainly be a dietary choice, so I have opted for the (nowadays) clearer and more succinct term, ‘vegan.’

It also has a lot of other things going for it, like being fat free, dairy-free, gluten-free and coconut-free. There are lots of vegan lemon curd recipes out there, but the vast majority seem to employ some kind of fat and many of them also include coconut cream to give body to the finished result and turmeric for colour.

This recipe has none of that, because the main ingredient in this recipe is swede. Yes, swede the vegetable. Also known as rutabaga, or ‘neeps’ if you’re in Scotland (shortened from Swedish Turnips, in case you were wondering). A mild-flavoured root vegetable, it adds body and also colour to the lemon curd. A little sugar, lemon-zest and juice and a gentle thickening with arrowroot, and you have a gloriously golden preserve to spread on your toast, fill your cakes and tarts and drizzle over ice-cream.

It doesn’t have to be arrowroot – although I do like the quick and ‘gentle’ set it has, and it’s ability to go clear when it’s setting qualities have ‘activated’. When cold, its not as firm/rubbery as other thickening agents. You could alternatively use cornflour, tapioca flour, sago, ground rice, etc. These last two were also in the original, but the sago needs to be soaked overnight and then cooked until translucent, and the ground rice made for a slight graininess, all of which takes away the spontenaiety. More cooking might have addressed the texture issue, but any prolonged cooking you run the risk of losing the fresh lemon flavour of the juice and zest.

And the flavour is the best thing about this recipe. It’s bright and fresh without any cloying richness from butter or eggs. It’s practically health-food!

This method could also be used for other citrus/fruit curds.

Vegan Lemon Curd

Makes about 250ml.

225g swede – peeled and diced small
85g caster sugar
zest and juice of 2 lemons
pinch of salt
15g arrowroot

Simmer the swede in boiling water until tender (15-20 minutes).
Drain and return to the warm pan. Turn off the heat and allow the excess moisture from the swede to evaporate.
Puree the swede. Because it is a small amount, it can be done in a spice grinder or small liquidiser. It is important for the texture to use something with offset blades – that is, blades pointing in different directions – to ensure a smooth puree. A food processor, with it’s flat blades spinning in just one plane, won’t chop things finely enough. Spare a thought for May Byron’s original readers, who had to press the cooked swede through a sieve.
Add some lemon juice to make the pureeing easier.
Return the puree to the cleaned pan and add any remaining lemon juice, the zest, the sugar and the salt.
Mix the arrowroot with a tablespoon of cold water and pour into the pan.
Heat gently, stirring, until thickened (4-5 minutes) and you can no-longer see the whiteness of the arrowroot mixture.
Pour into a clean jar and store in the fridge.

Honey Curd

20th century, Preserves

This recipe was an absolute delight to discover in an old Women’s Institute recipe book. For a start, the use of honey instead of refined sugar is so much better for you, and it increases the keeping properties immensely. The original recipe claimed that it would keep a year.

I used the cheapest, runny honey to see how much the flavour of the honey impacted on the final result, and it’s not overly intrusive – just a gentle hint at the end.

The real beauty of this recipe is how you can tweak both the honey and the accompanying fruit to give an almost limitless variety – Lime Tree Honey and limes, Orange Blossom Honey and oranges are just a couple of suggestions that sprung into my mind. Update: I have now tried both these flavour combinations, and can honestly say, hand on heart, that they are two of the most sublime-tasting citrus curds I have EVER tasted.

This recipe will make double the quantity of honey, so you’ll need just one extra jar in addition to your jar of honey. Wash both jars and lids and put them into a cold oven. Turn the oven on to 100°C, 80°C Fan until dry and hot.

As for the instructions, they couldn’t be easier. The original recipe contained just one line of instruction, but I’ve managed to pad that out to four!

Honey Curd

340g jar of runny honey[1]
2 large eggs
1 large yolk
zest and juice of 1 lemon
juice of 1 extra lemon
45g clarified butter

Put all of the ingredients into a small pan and whisk together over a low heat until thickened.
Pour into the clean, warm jars and seal.
Set aside to cool.
Use as any other curd – the original recipe recommends it as a filling for little tarts.

[1] Don’t be too precious about being exact – I only specify 340ml because that’s how much honey was in the jar that I used. 300ml-ish is fine.