I was looking at the box full of left over clementines (what happened to mandarins? One more symptom of free trade?) I went looking for inspiration but could not find anything appealing – so I decided to try my (as opposed to Wojtek’s) usual orange-peel approach. Hopefully these will be usable in Christmas baking fury…
I produced a tightly packed ½ litre jar, and some left-over syrup, to be used as a sweetener of deserts? Perhaps?
I had
- 8 small clementines
- Some (pinch?) salt
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 1/2 cups water
- People ate the clementines, I collected the peel. Because we rejected any formality, the peel is not formatted in any regular shapes – our focus was on having the peel, not on cutting it in any special way.
- I placed all the peel into a pot full of cold water, salted it and brought it to a boil uncovered
- Let it simmer for 10 minutes, then drained and rinsed peel
- More cold water and salt, do it again
- Made syrup: bring sugar and water to a boil in a heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes.
- Added peel and gently simmered it, uncovered, until tender and translucent and syrup is thickened, about 1 hour.
- Sterilised a jar, placed the soft, cooked peel in it, pour in as much of the syrup as possible (tried to eliminate air bubbles by pushing-in a knife or a spoon handle along the walls of the jar,,)
- Closed, did not bother baking in the oven, placed up-side down to cool down, and then into the fridge. Will use for baking or decorating