Tis' the Season

Why do I disappear during the summer months?  I think it may be the dreadful heat.  It is painful to have to cook anything in my kitchen when it is easily almost 100 degrees.  This summer was particularly harsh and I don't just mean the heat, work really took up all of my free time as well.  I quit a part-time job that allowed me the time to bake and cook but had me flat broke.  In better news I got a job that allowed me the purchase power for ingredients but no time.  It's always somethin'!

Tis' the season though and that means I need to make the time to get into the kitchen.  I started with my great-aunt Laly's sour orange candy.  Like many recipes that involve very little ingredients, it is complicated and time consuming.  In this case all you need are about 25 or so small to medium sour oranges, lots of sugar and water.  That's it believe it or not.  The hard part is finding about 18 hours of free time.  Let me walk you through this delicious and complicated holiday treat.

First I need to actually be able to get the sour oranges off my tree.  This is no small feat here in Miami where sour oranges, avocados, mangos, and mamey sapote are quickly stolen by anyone who can a) jump your fence, b) destroy your fence, c) get past your pets, and want to steal them to to sell them off a truck on the street corners or just take them home to eat.  The sour oranges are different and to understand this you must know that the juice is popular on pork meat (and any other meat really) as a marinade. This complicates matters because citrus begins to flourish now, just around the holidays. But I digress, first I had to fight for my own sour oranges.  After I secured as many as I needed I duly shared with my deserving neighbors, friends and co-workers.  Here is my first pic:

This isn't all the ones I used, you will need about 25 or so to make a decent amount of this marmalade candy concoction.  The next step is just as difficult, remove the rind only.  Leave the pith!  The pith makes the candy!  You can try to grate the rind off using a grater but I find it leave way to much rind and therefore leaves too much bitterness in your final product.

After you grate and/or cut away the colored rind, you have to remove all the pulp from the oranges.  This is where I squeezed all the lovely juice out and saved it in my bottle for future marinading.  These are juicy oranges.

Just so you know this takes a few hours.  No kidding.

Next you need to soak the cleaned piths in water overnight with about a teaspoon of salt.  I omitted this step for my first batch last week and the end result was a little too bitter for my taste.  So I made sure not to omit this for yesterday's/today's batch.  Now comes the boiling.  Discard the soaking water and cover the piths in fresh water.  Bring to a boil over high heat, rinse and repeat a minimum of 2 times.  At this point you should taste the piths and see if it is to your liking but I took it to 1 more boiling round.

After the last boiling round drain again and add equal parts sugar and water to cover the piths.  Cook until the syrup becomes thick, reduced and a light amber color.

The syrup is thick and sweet and the piths keep a very mild bitter orange flavor that works well with the cloying sugary syrup.  This is why you need sour oranges as sweet oranges will not have the flavor punch necessary.

And so, here I begin some holiday stuff.  My next challenge is to make empanadas out of cassava.  This will be another journey into culinary hell but I need to start the engines and stop neglecting my blog. I am following the recipe of another blogger and of course, 3 ingredients to make this cassava dough.  Peeled and grated yucca (cassava root), a little water and a little salt.  Why do I try these crazy things? I also want to take more pictures again.  Ugh, responsibilities always gets in the way but I hope to have lots more time for this year's holiday season.

I found a kitty on election day at my voting station, I named him Romney.  Looks like he will be around when I'm blogging.

So was it the heat or my lack of time? I think it's a combo because the hot oven warms the house during the cool months. Till next time (hopefully this coming week as I already will not be at work from Tuesday through the end of the week, some black friday shopping maybe?  ;-)