Saturday, March 29, 2014

Candied Citrus Peel

Candied Citrus Peel

    Collect the peel from lemons, limes, grapefruit and oranges. These will not keep longer than a week in your fridge so I usually buy the fruit, peel it and store the fruit or juice separately. I like to segment the grapefruit and oranges and to juice the lemons and limes.
    Cut the peel into one inch square pieces, place these in a saucepan, cover with water, bring to a boil and simmer for ten minutes, stirring the skins to make sure all get a good dunking in the simmering  water. Do this three times. This eliminates the bitterness in the skin.
    Next place the skins in a measuring jug and assess how much there is. For every cupful you will need 1/3 cup sugar and 1/4 cup of water. Place the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a simmer. When the sugar has melted and you've created a simple syrup add the skins. Now comes the difficult part: you will need to keep this at a slow simmer on low heat and stir continuously until all the syrup has been absorbed. I usually let it simmer for three or four minutes and stir it for two minutes. The important thing is to keep the skins turning over in the syrup in order to distribute it evenly.
    When all the syrup has been absorbed turn the skins out onto a plate or silicone mat. Spread them out into a single layer, dust them with sugar and let them dry for a few hours. I like to put most of them into a food processor, chop them into 1/8 inch pieces, put them into a glass container and freeze them to use later. I'll post some recipes for using them. Some I keep to dry out and become tasty morsels to eat when I feel like a sweet, crispy nibble.

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