SPARKLY YUZU MARMALADE / TRAVELING THROUGH TOAST

I am late to the Substack party, but it's not for lack of thinking about it.

Over the past few years, I have spent hours obsessing over names for my Substack. I told myself the name was the stumbling block that prevented me from starting. Honestly, though, it was more fear of starting something new and all that comes with that process. Friends, If I texted you, emailed you, or slid into your DM's with an exhaustive list of names, including everything from Hare's Ear (a wild mushroom) to Florae~ thank you for listening. I know I pestered you (you know who you are, I see you, I love you, I thank you )

I wanted to decide if it was a journal or a digest or if it should be one word or two. Nothing was feeling right. I long ago retired my blog, Hungry Ghost, and it went to the blog graveyard. Thank you to any of you who used to read it. It was pretty scrappy. I abandoned it when Instagram started, but I missed the process. After writing my first cookbook, Cooking With Mushrooms, I realized how much content I created that never made it to the book. Over the years, Instagram became my place for content creation after the blog. The more recent move from photos to reels did not resonate with me. Lately, I felt the pull of a longer-form narrative. I wanted a place to share travel stories, recipes, interviews, and narrative memoir. I am that person who wants to tell anyone who will listen about my latest meal or a new kitchen tool, comestible, restaurant, or wild mushroom find. I want to discuss my book-writing process and share my experience photographing other people's books.

I am of the mentality - that sharing lifts us all. 

It's no secret that if you know me, you know that I love to stock my larder with all kinds of exciting ingredients from near and far. I always travel with an extra bag inside my suitcase (usually the Baggu Weekender) to fill with the flavor bombs I find along the way. Think of the most amazing salted capers, powdered bottarga, the thickest, tastiest tomato paste (estrattu), or colatura, the umami essence of anchovy. From my kitchen, you will find salted citrus, homemade mushroom powders, and all kinds of wild greens; dandelion, chicory, lambs quarters, mustard greens, and purselane. Don’t even get me started on my love for nettles.

After much thought, I settled on Wild Larder Journal as my substack name. Wild Larder Journal will be a newsletter, a series of workshops, and a place to share my latest larder obsessions and seasonal recipes. It will be a place for travel notes and inspiration. It will be a newsletter, a digest, and a journal. It will be an evolution, just like life.

It's the umbrella under which I will gather and collect my favorite things. I am so excited to share them with you. 

I plan to post once or twice a month while I work out the kinks. Subscriptions are free at the moment. Sometime in the future, I will charge a nominal fee for extra recipes and specialty content. I am hoping some of you will subscribe. It will be a way for me to continue to bring original and inspiring content directly to you!

So, welcome to Wild Larder Journal

I am enormously grateful that you are here.

Xx

Andrea

SPARKLY YUZU MARMALADE

I started making marmalade in the late winter of 2020. It comforted me to have the house filled with the beautiful smell of citrus. The windows were all steamy, and in the end, I had glistening jars of marmalade to share with family and friends. The taste of it made me think of my great-grandmother and her love for lemons.

It inspired a small essay I wrote during that time called Traveling Through Toast. I will share it below. Since then, I've made many kinds of marmalade with all types of citrus, everything from Yuzu to Oroblanco and Meyer lemon to Calamansi and Limequat, you name it. I've done this so often that I stopped following any recipe and went on intuition. When a friend asked me for my recipe earlier this winter, I couldn't tell her because it was all in my head. So, I made a small batch of marmalade to work out the ratios; this is the recipe below. There are as many ways to make marmalade as roast a chicken. I am sharing just one way. I am using a whole fruit method here because it's quick; other methods involve soaking the rinds anywhere from overnight to four to five days! Some marmalade recipes will have you peel the rind and supreme the fruit. Yuzu benefits from the whole fruit method because they are full of seeds and don't have an abundance of juice or flesh to supreme. If you decide to experiment with another citrus, feel free to supreme them and soak the rind for days and days if that's your thing. Here in New York City, we are fortunate to find many kinds of citrus becoming increasingly popular in mainstream grocery stores such as Whole Foods and Wegman's, where I found piles of Yuzu December. If you are looking for a specific citrus you can't find in your area; I've attached links below to farms I've worked with. I hope this inspires you to make your sparkly jars of marmalade.

INGREDIENTS

SPARKLY YUZU MARMALADE

2 pounds Yuzu fruit, approx 5 cups rind

2 teaspoons pink Himalayan salt

4 cups sugar

5 cups of poaching water (see directions below), plus 5 cups of fresh water

3 tablespoons Ume plum vinegar

Juice of 4-5 lemons, about 1 cup juice

METHOD

Stick a couple of small plates in the freezer before beginning this project. You will use them later and want them to be super cold.

Wash the fruit.

Sterilize jars

Fill an extra large stock pot with water about ¾ full. ( You want at least 5 cups of poaching liquid left over after boiling)

Add the two teaspoons of sea salt.

Add the whole Yuzu fruit to the pot. The salt helps to soften the skin and adds to the umami-ness of the marmalade. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to a bare simmer until soft. You are essentially poaching the fruit. You want to pierce the skin with a fork easily. If it is still tough, cook until soft. This can take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half.

Remove from heat. With a slotted spoon, transfer the citrus to a bowl to cool. Save the poaching water.

As the citrus cools, it will look shrunken from all sides. This is normal.

Line a colander with a piece of cheesecloth, set the colander inside another bowl, and set it aside.

Once the citrus is cool enough to handle, cut it in half and scoop out the insides over the cheesecloth and bowl (you are scooping out all the flesh and pits into the colander lined with cheesecloth). Any juice will be caught in the bowl below.

Once you have scooped out all the seeds and flesh of the Yuzu, tie the cheesecloth into a bundle so the seeds can escape. (It helps if you use a new cheesecloth for this project. I found the older cheesecloth allows the pips to slip into the marmalade.)

Now, you are ready to cut your citrus into thin strips. Cut each round into quarters using a sharp knife, then cut thin strips. This is where the hand of the maker comes in. You can cut the rind as thin or thick as you want; it depends on how you prefer your marmalade. Set the rinds aside in a large bottom stock pot or a copper jam pan.

Once the citrus is cut into thin strips and placed in the pot, add 4 cups of poaching liquid and 4 cups of fresh water to the rinds. Tuck the bag of flesh, and pips into the pot, and boil for about an hour until the liquid is visibly reduced by half.

Remove from the heat; remove the muslin or cheesecloth and set it in a bowl to cool.

Once cool enough to handle, squeeze the bag of flesh and pips to remove as much pectin as possible into the bowl through the muslin; it will be thick and dense. Make sure to keep it tied up so no pips escape.

Add the pectin, sugar, umeboshi plum vinegar, and 3/4 cup lemon juice to the cooked rinds. The umeboshi vinegar is my secret umami for all of my marmalades. It adds a slight saltiness and bitterness and is perfectly paired with the sweet-sour of the citrus.

Turn heat to medium and boil for a minute or two, stirring until all the sugar is dissolved. Reduce the heat to a bare simmer for about an hour.

Marmalade set times are fussy, so use your eyes, intuition, and hands to check when your marmalade is ready. First, watch for the bubbles to get slow and thick; people often say it is like bubbling crude oil, but who has a reference for that? I recently read that Alison Roman likens marmalade readiness in bubbles to slow-blinking fish eyes; this I understand.

As soon as the bubbles start changing, grab your thermometer and see where you are for temperature. Add the last 1/4 cup of lemon juice and stir in. Most recipes say the marmalade setting time is 220, but I like my marmalade a little runny. My sweet spot for marmalade is around 218 degrees, but this produces a pretty runny result. (I add it to yogurt, ice cream, labneh, or on top of my favorite cheesecake or piece of toast; these all benefit from a looser set. If you want a thicker marmalade, take it to 220 and test it as soon as it reaches that point. Take out your frozen plate, put a small spoonful on it, and let it cool for a minute. Smear the marmalade with a spoon through the center; if it pools quickly back together, it needs more cooking time; if it stays somewhat separated, it is ready. This may seem a little daunting, but trust me, once you do it, you'll understand.

When the marmalade is ready, add the juice of 1 lemon and let it cool for ten or fifteen minutes before filling the sterilized jars and covering them with lids. You can store the marmalade in your fridge or hot water bath can. If you store them in your refrigerator, tell your friends to refrigerate when you give them away. If you hot-water bath the jars, they will be shelf-stable and don't need to be refrigerated until opened.

Bhumi Growers

Pearson Ranch

Here is a link to hot water bath canning.

TRAVELING THROUGH TOAST

It is a cold winter morning. I am upstate in our tiny farmhouse on the North slope of a mountain where big fat snowflakes silently blanket the frozen ground. No one is up yet except the cat, and while I am physically in the upper western Catskills, my spirit travels through toast.

I move around the kitchen, reach for the salt, and stop to clip a small piece of oregano from the dried bundle hanging near the stove. As I do so, I am thinking about the market in Catania and the blinding salty limestone cliffs of the Scala de Turchi. I generously smear my toast with local Jersey butter, sparkly citrus marmalade (recipe below), pungent dried Sicilian oregano, and fleur de sel from the salt flats of Trapani.

Toast is the perfect talisman to carry collected flavors and memories from afar. Toast is a humble partner waiting for me to unload my heavy suitcase, filled with Anchovies and Astrattu from Sicily, Honey from a convent in France, a dusting of powdered bottarga from the shop near the fish market in Venice, pickled Kritamo from Ischia, and rose petal and almond spoon sweets from Andros. These condiments may be small but are big in flavor and easily tucked away in a suitcase bound for home.

The salt and oregano I sprinkle on my toast are comestibles collected from a trip to Sicily; this toast becomes much more than a piece of toast. It's an adventure and an invitation to time travel. Toast is not a recipe. It's more of an instinct, hands reaching for a serrated knife, a quick cut, edges browned to just crispy, center soft. Slather it with a smear of buttercup yellow, softened salty butter. Eat it just like that, or dress it up as above. Toast is comforting and rich with memories. As I bite into it, a drip of butter hits the table. The flavor profile is so ridiculously good. I start to dream about other ways to use it. Just like that, inspiration comes, and a flavor profile is born, all from a distant memory of a blinding hot summer day, the mountain breeze densely fragrant with wild herbs, and the salty sea.

TRAVELING THROUGH TOAST

It is a cold winter morning in February, the month that always seems to be the hardest of winter. I am upstate in our tiny farmhouse on the North slope of a mountain where big fat snowflakes are silently blanketing the frozen ground. No one is up yet except the cat, and while I am physically in the upper western Catskills, my spirit travels through toast this winter morning. I move around the kitchen, reach for the salt, and stop to clip a small piece of oregano from the dried bundle hanging near the stove. As I do so, I am thinking about the market in Catania and the blinding salty limestone cliffs of the Scala de Turchi. I generously smear my toast with local Jersey butter, sparkly citrus marmalade, pungent dried Sicilian oregano, and fleur de sel from the salt flats of Trapani.

The salt and oregano are comestibles collected from a 2019 trip to Sicily; this toast becomes much more than a piece of toast. It’s an adventure and an invitation to time travel. Toast is not a recipe. It’s more of an instinct, hands reaching for a serrated knife, a quick cut, edges browned to just crispy, center soft. Slather it with a smear of buttercup yellow, softened salty butter. Eat it just like that, or dress it up as above. Toast is comforting and rich with memories. As I bite into it, a drip of butter hits the table. The flavor profile is so ridiculously good. I start to dream about other ways to use it. Just like that, inspiration comes, and a flavor profile is born, all from a distant memory of a blinding hot summer day, the mountain breeze densely fragrant with wild herbs, and the salty sea.

Enjoy!!

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