Belinda Moore

Here are a few things I did with the excess mandarins friends gave us. We used to have our own glut for years, but here on the new farm our mandarin trees are still babies.

Mandarin Jam (about 3 jars)
8 mandarins
1kg sugar
3 cups water
Wipe mandarins with a damp cloth, cut them in half horizontally then in half again. Using fingers remove seeds and discard them. Peel away skin and reserve the skins of 4 mandarins. Using a sharp knife cut skin into fine slivers. Place mandarin pulp in food processor, process until pulp is chopped (few seconds). Place pulp in a large pan, add rind, sugar and water - mix well. Mixture should be about 5cm deep in the pan. Stir jam over medium heat until shugar has dissolved, increase heat slightly, boil gently, uncovered without stirring for around 50 mins. Check occasionally during last 10 mins of cooking to make sure mixture isn’t burning on the bottom. Test to see if jam will jell on a cold saucer. Remove scum from surface, pour jam into hot sterilised jars. Seal when cold. Label and store or give as a gift.

Mandarin Muffins (18)
1 cup mandarin pieces, deseeded
1 cup mandarin juice
2 cups wholemeal spelt flour +
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup rapidura sugar
1 egg, beaten
250ml natural yoghurt
1/2 cup macadamia oil
1/2 cup nuts, chopped
Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Line muffin pans with paper liners. Jucie the mandarins. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, bicarb, salt, sugar. In another bowl, comine egg, yoghurt, juice, oil. Stir nuts and mandarin pieces through dry ingredients, then add the liquid mixture. Stir only until moistened. Fill lined muffin cups until 2/3 full. Bake for 25 minutes. Ready when spring back to the touch. Freeze well.

*NB this is what I used - original recipe was SR flour (instead of spelt + baking powder), sour cream (instead of yoghurt), more sugar (and only white), butter not oil. I always mix and match ingredients to suit what I have on hand and experiment with new ingredients. I try to avoid white flours, sugar etc.

Mandarin syrup (Cordial)
1.5kg sugar (I’ve used white or raw)
900ml water
450ml mandarin juice (or orange, grapefruit, lemon etc)
few strips rind
Bring the sugar and water to the boil - when it starts to thicken slightly, add the juice and peel. Simmer 5 minutes. Strain well into a jug. Pour into sterilised bottles. Seal and label. To serve, mix with chilled water or soda water. Nice as a mixer for cocktails. To enchance flavour, add mandarin (or lemon) juice icecubes to drink - YUM.

To Freeze Mandarins:
Peel, de-seed and freeze in a syrup for use in cooking at a later date. Syrup may be useful as liquid measure of some recipes as well.
Remove pith and freeze sections as a cool treat.

Other Uses:
* In Salads
* In Desserts - with ice-cream, custard, puddings, in jelly
* Juiced
* Frozen juice (may need sweetening) as iceblocks
* Frozen juice (icecubes) to add to cooking or drinks, store in a snaplock bag once frozen for easy access.

I’ve a couple more (untested) recipes - jam, another cordial… Oh, dry peels on the top of the fireplace and add to the fire - they smell lovely!