Creating seasonal recipes that are inspired by my passion for local, organic foods

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Candied orange peel

Chocolate dipped candied orange peelsOver on Crunchy Chicken I'm describing how I'm turning some of my food scraps into delectable foods. Candied orange peels are no different.

You can modify this recipe to make more or less.

Ingredients:
Peels from 5 medium size organic oranges
4 cups granulated sugar
2.5 cups water
6 oz milk chocolate (for dipping, if desired)

The process is fairly easy.

Step 1. Scrape the inside of the orange peels to remove the residual orange from the pith. If the pith is really thick, scrape it out with a vegetable peeler or a knife.

Step 1

Step 2. Cut the peels into strips about 1/4" in width, removing the parts where the stem and the orange end are and any parts that don't look good.

Step 2

Step 3. Put the strips into a medium sauce pan and cover with cold water. Bring the water to a boil to blanch the peels. This helps remove the bitterness of the pith. Repeat the blanching process one more time (if you removed a lot of the pith) or two more times if you left a lot of the pith on (like I did).

Step 3

Step 4. Drain the peels and rinse with cold water. In the same saucepan add the water and sugar and bring to a boil. It will start to boil somewhere around 210 degrees F.

Step 4

Step 5. Once the sugar syrup is boiling, add the peels and bring the temperature back up to boiling. Simmer the peels on medium low until they become translucent. Depending on how much pith is on the peel this will take anywhere from 1/2 an hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes (this is how long it took mine).

Step 5

Step 6. When the peels are looking translucent, use a pair of tongs and remove them from the pot, placing them on a rack set over a cookie sheet to catch the drips. If you want you can roll the freshly removed strips in additional sugar but I found this to be a huge mess.

[You can strain the sugar syrup and use it as a simple syrup in a variety of recipes - just make sure you refrigerate it.]

Step 6

Step 7. Leave the peels out to dry. If you want to speed things up you can put the whole cookie tray/rack combo in the oven at 250 degrees F for an hour or two.

Step 8. If you want to dip the strips in chocolate, melt the milk chocolate over a double boiler and dip, laying the strips down on parchment paper to dry.

Step 8

7 comments:

Chile said...

An easy way to avoid the whole pith removal process is to cut the peel off the fruit with a sharp knife rather than peeling the fruit as usual. With a knife, you can control how much pith you get. Another option is using a sharp veggie grater, pulling it towards you so that you can control it more easily.

I've never dipped mine in chocolate. I bet they'd be pretty standing up on a birthday cake instead of candles...

Andrea said...

In my household, they just have to be dipped in dark, dark chocolate. Watch out - they are super addictive!

Yum!

Anonymous said...

Wow! What a great recipe! I get fantastic biodynamic oranges from my CSA that I am loathe to waste ANY part of - so it's nice to know that this recipe will use up all of the pieces of our fantastic biodynamic oranges! I'll share this site with our CSA blog - you may even want to link to each other!

Ashley said...

OMG that is SOOO cool! I am so trying this. Gives me good motivation to eat those dang oranges piled in the kitchen Haha!

GL Rules said...

Delicious stuff here.
Can I link your blog off of mine? Wanna share your stuff to my readers.

Peace!
Geoff

Anonymous said...

I feel like I might be a different species, when compared with the other people who posted comments... Erm, I really just always knew that there might be some home remedies and/or non-prevalent uses for orange peels... (I'm always sick and am trying to cut down on medication effects and medication costs... quite a bit of which I suspect are due to chemicals (like chlorine: swollen glands and now offically bronchitis!), as well as my own limited knowledge of cheap-living, non-wasteful and non-chemical lifestyle options...

...I will definitely make this recipe tonight and hope that it might be good to give my Dad for an Xmas present...


--But the real reason that I had to post something was because I looked up "Biodynamic" in several online dictionaries and thesauruses... evidently they haven't quite kept up because I found these hillarious definitions:

bi•o•dy•nam•ics
   [bahy-oh-dahy-nam-iks, -di-] Show IPA
noun ( used with a singular verb )
the branch of biology dealing with energy or the activity of living organisms ( opposed to biostatics).

Biodynamic is always a great word to know.
- The offspring of a zebra and a donkey


Anyhow, I can't copy & paste the entire thing on here, but if you doubt me, please visit the site (pretty funny):
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/biodynamic?__utma=1.2136166429.1319495426.1322673079.1323791410.8&__utmb=1.2.10.1323791410&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1319643504.5.5.utmcsr=google|utmccn=%28organic%29|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=thesaurus&__utmv=-&__utmk=234065310


--Thank you all for posting, regardless-- I'm really impressed with this site and hope to check it out a few times a week... Seems pretty interesting!

Unknown said...

An easier way is to cut the whole fruit into 5mm slices using a mandolin or knife then drying them in a dehydrator for 12 hours. These make awesome fruit flavour crisps :) Healthier because no sugar is added