To make candied kumquats, you need to remove the stems from the kumquats. The stems are the hard part of the wood, so you have to remove them. If you use kumquats that are too ripe, the fruit will become too soft and will not keep well, but if they are not ripe, they will produce bitterness and will not taste good, so it's a tricky process.

The kumquats are boiled with a knife in order to remove the seeds. The kumquats need to have as few seeds as possible and the bag inside must be cut in order to remove the seeds, so the knife is inserted to a certain depth, but if it is cut too deep and separated, it cannot be used for a celebration. The fruit that has had the knife inserted is immediately dropped into water with a little vinegar added, but this is not to expose it to water, but to prevent the metal (knife) from coming into contact with air and oxidizing if it is left as it is. The seeds are removed one by one by probing with a bamboo skewer from the place where the knife was inserted, which is quite difficult, and it is also a moment when you think it would be great if there were seedless kumquats (lol). Before this process, the kumquats must be boiled once to soften them, otherwise they will crack, so they are put in boiling water and cooked to a certain extent, but they are not completely cooked at this stage in order to cook them completely when they are boiled in syrup later. As the kumquats are cooked, they will generally float to the surface, and you can judge the firmness of the skin at this point before placing them in ice water. Each one is different in size and ripeness, and so the boiling time will also differ, so you just scoop them out from the floating ones. Strictly speaking, the sugar content varies depending on how ripe the kumquats are, so the boiling method, and more specifically the amount of sugar and steaming time, all change. Even if you think they're a little hard after boiling them here, you can't boil them a second time, so when you finally soak them in water and remove the seeds, you put them in a steamer, and then make any adjustments that were too early, although it's quite a delicate process.

We soak them in sugar water or syrup, but because moisture is the worst thing for them, we drop them in water first, so we make sure to drain the water and keep the temperature constant when we drop them in. If we drop them in when they're still cold, the sugar water that's just melted and ready to go will suddenly cool and solidify. That's why we bring them to the same temperature to allow them to blend.