At Lunar New Year, Vietnamese families make many kinds of jam, and orange fruit skin jam (mứt vỏ cam) is one of them. It uses only the orange part of the peel, cooked slowly with sugar, and it’s a jam to serve to visitors who come to your house over Tet. Photo: Veganbaking.net from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Plan ahead: the peel soaks in cold water for 12 hours, then sits in sugar for 8–10 hours before the final cooking. Ingredients 2 oranges (300–400 g) 200 g white sugar 2 tablespoons orange juice 3 tablespoons water How to make mứt vỏ cam 1. Prepare the peel Peel the oranges. Cut off the white part and use only the orange part. Slice it into long pieces. Soak the pieces in boiled water for 10 minutes, then repeat this once more. 2. Soak out the bitterness After the second soak, wash the peel straight away in cold water, then soak it in cold water for 12 hours. This step helps reduce the bitterness of the orange skin. 3. Sugar the peel Let the peel dry, then add the sugar and mix well. Cook over low heat for 10 minutes and turn off the heat. Cover the pot for 8–10 hours so the sugar can soak into the orange skin. 4. Cook the jam Cook again over low heat. Add the water and orange juice to the pot and stir from time to time with chopsticks. Cook until all the sugar syrup has been absorbed into the orange skin, then turn off the heat. Let the jam cool, store it in a jar and eat it day by day. When visitors come to your house, serve it to them as a way of showing respect.
