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Looking for a method

post #1 of 7
12/11/06 at 7:55pm
Thread Starter 
Well once again I am on the spot, my employer has requested a dish he had at a restaurant in Connecticut somewhere around Nantucket. He told me briefly it was a whole sous vide orange with a little olive oil. The orange was totally (he said) candied in the center and the peel was sweet and not at all bitter. That is all I have to go on, I am familiar with the sous vide method but this one is elusive as I cannot get the orange cooked and candied in the center correctly or I should I say to fit the description I briefly received. My employer is somewhat eccentric with his requests and he has yet to stump me even after 6 years of employment and believe me I have had some tough ones, real James Bond stuff the last mission was to make Taylor pork roll (try to look that one up). I have every piece of kitchen technology at my disposal you can think of and my employer is a kind and generous man but I cannot figure this one out. He could not recall the name of the restaurant at the time of our conversation. Any help would be much appreciated I would hate to disappoint him. Cheers.
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post #2 of 7
12/11/06 at 8:30pm
preserved as if it were a lemon (a la morocco, the meditteranean etc)?

then confited with olive oil under vacuum...

what methods have you tried so far?

sounds like you have a pretty fun gig going.
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post #3 of 7
12/12/06 at 12:01pm

fast guess

Pulling this out of my butt i would have to say that the orange would have to be blanched in simple syrup, since you said candied. However small pin holes in the skin of the orange to reach the inside. it still will be a pain to be made even in texture. maybe only 4 times instead of the traditional 7 then sous vide in the olive oil. wish i had the toys you do. good luck
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post #4 of 7
12/12/06 at 6:58pm
Thread Starter 
I've tried to candy it like you would do for any large fruit, gradually increasing the density of the sugar syrup over the course of 3-4 days but the inside is still watery and orange like for the lack of a better word. I've poked numerous holes in it with a toothpick as well.
The oil tends to seperate out as well based on the description I recieved the oil somehow emulified and made the sauce.
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post #5 of 7
12/12/06 at 7:09pm
I remember seeing some gadget which you screw into a citrus fruit and squeeze out the juice. Hmmm... interesting.
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post #6 of 7
12/13/06 at 8:28am
Yeah Kuan, you can get one for 50 cents at any citrus stand in Fla. You can also inflate an emty one by blowing air back in. When I was a kid we used to do that and then set the orange Hole side down to trick someone.

Tony
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post #7 of 7
12/13/06 at 10:09am
There's a long tradition of candying whole fruit in southern Africa - we call it konfyt: this recipe is based on the 1909 recipe of Miss B. L. Fynn, from the Bulawayo Cookery Book, but I've also used hints from Mrs van Tulleken's recipe from The Practical Cookery Book for South Africa; I've only ever preserved 6 at a time:

12 oranges
4 lb white sugar
4 British quarts water (this equals 5 US quarts water)

Peel or grate the oranges very thinly (this removes the bitter oils from the zest) and cut a small cross at the base of the orange, sliding a narrow knife at least two-thirds of the way inside the orange as you do so. Soak the oranges in fresh cold water for 24 hours, changing it once after 12 hrs.

Drain the oranges and remove the pips through the cross cut in the base - I use a spoon handle, gently squeezing the orange and sliding the handle in and out of the cross cut so that the pips pop out.

Place the oranges in cold water and bring to the boil; simmer them for about ten minutes until the peel has softened (traditionally, you stop boiling when the peel is soft enough for a matchstick to pierce it...). Drain the oranges and when cool, try to remove the remaining pips.

Make fresh syrup with the sugar and water and gently boil the oranges in the syrup for about 90 mins, or until the syrup has thickened. Then cover it and leave it for 24 hrs. The following day the syrup will have thinned down again due to extracting the remaining juice from the oranges; gently boil for about 4-6 hrs, adding extra syrup as necessary, until the oranges become translucent - until they are translucent there will still be "raw" orange in the centre of the fruit.

At this stage, konfyt is traditionally bottled in the syrup. I'm wondering if you served this, with an emulsified dressing of bottling syrup and olive oil, it would be close?
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