Hot answers tagged citrus
18
The very thin outside layer of the Lime, Lemon, Orange, and other citrus. It contains aromatic and flavorful oils that will enhance your meals.
When you zest your citrus fruit (usually with a fine grater) you need make sure that you only pull off the zest and not the white pith that lies underneath. The pith is bitter and generally not something you want in ...
12
Orange zest is where most of the oil is. This can be removed with a grater and some patience, or a peeler if you have a light touch, but the best way is a zester. They are fairly expensive and only do one thing, but they are the best tool for the job. Mircoplane makes a nice line, and I have no complains about mine.
You want to avoid scraping the white pith ...
8
What you have there is simply water seeping out of the gel and bringing some dissolved stuff with it. This is known technically as syneresis. What will help is to add something stabilize the gel. Xanthan gum is probably the easiest thing to use. You can find it at health food stores or Whole Foods because gluten-free bakers use it a lot. Start with 1/8 ...
7
There is unlikely to be any single answer to my question since the coating can be any one of a number of substances including,
Natural or synthetic resins
Carnauba wax
Shellac
Tall oil
Paraffin
Oxidised polyethylene
Candelilla wax
Beeswax
Corn, soy or milk proteins
These may be disolved in a petroleum based solvent, emulsified with a detergent or ...
7
The best way to remove wax from citrus is simply to wash it with dish soap under warm, running water. Don't obsess about how long you should wash the fruit; usually the wax application is very thin and quickly removed.
There is no easy way to tell whether you have removed the wax, so if you return citrus to fridge after removing the wax, you might want to ...
7
There are three (to the best of my knowledge) main factors at work here:
Pectin. This is a gelling agent, a bit like gelatin. Fruits such as apples and plums are very high in pectin; citrus fruits are not that high in pectin but citrus peels are incredibly high, so if you're using any of the peel, you're getting tons of great pectin.
Obviously, the more ...
6
You might be able to counter-balance it with other flavors (salt, sour, sweet, hot), but you're likely still going to have some bitter notes come through, it's just a question if it's tolerable or not, and some people dislike bitter more than others. (I can't understand how people can drink beers other than lambics)
In looking at a similar thread on ...
6
I recently did some experimenting on this exact topic. I can't contribute anything to the safety part of your question, but I have some notes regarding flavor.
The experiment: I blind tasted lemon zest in a group of associates and friends with varying degrees of palette development. Most people were able to differentiate between fresh zest with wax and ...
5
Short of using an electric juicer, the squeeze press type of juicer is very popular for doing large quantities of citrus quickly and efficiently. They are both fast, and squeeze almost all of the available juice, getting the best of both worlds.
These come in sizes that are best for limes, lemons, oranges, or even grapefruits.
5
It's the colorful outer layer of the peel. The white part is the pith, and you don't want that as it imparts bitterness.
You can remove the zest by using the part of a cheese grater that you would use for parmesian cheese. If you're really careful, you can also use a vegetable peeler, but it's difficult to avoid the pith.
5
They should be quite a bit softer than a standard Eureka lemon, because the skin is much thinner. That said, it shouldn't be like a gentle squeeze causes your finger to sink in 1/2 an inch. If that happens, I think you've found a batch that are too old and have started to get mushy or lose moisture. Keep looking for good ones - Meyer lemons are terrifically ...
4
I'd say your best bet is segmenting the grapefruit before trying to eat it.
Here's a good video about it. How to Peel and Segment a Grapefruit
Downside: It's a lot more work, and you still wind up with a juice-covered cutting board that needs to be washed.
4
Well, if it comes directly from Southern Italy you could use it to make some Southern Italy specialty like pastiera napoletana, sfogliatelle napoletane or cannoli siciliani, all of which require candied fruits.
Traditionally pastiera is done with a mix of candied citron and orange peel plus candied pumpkin (cucuzzata) which however is not the easiest ...
4
I've successfully frozen yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit slightly similar to lemon or grapefruit) zest for two or three months without much damage; the flavor isn't perfect, but it's usable as long as you don't get serious freezer burn. I've kept it in a small Rubbermaid container. There is a potential problem because citrus oils can damage certain types of ...
4
For making large amounts of margarita, I've found it hard to beat a press like this one:
It extracts almost all the juice in one easy movement.
I don't see the benefit in a rotary juicer.
3
Is the wax safe?
Coatings used on fruits and vegetables must meet FDA food additive
regulations for safety. [ US Food & Drug Administration: http://www.fda.gov/food/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm114299 ]
In the States, at least, it appears that fruit wax is regulated. Now, that doesn't mean it's healthy (cigarettes and gasoline are also ...
3
I'm not as familiar with citrus, but tomatoes and peppers can develop something called blossom-end rot. This is caused by the plant not receiving enough nutrients (specifically calcium), whether b/c the plant isn't getting enough water and thus can't get the nutrients out of the soil or b/c the soil is deficient.
Regarding whether it's safe to eat, a ...
3
There are noted resources for flavor pairing, many of which you can find on this site. Check out flavor. You'll find:
Why some flavors work better together than others
A list of books and websites providing information on flavor combinations, including suggestions for
FoodPairing
Khymos
The Flavor Thesaurus
cuuks (here's a start for your combo)
The ...
3
This isn't a direct answer, but rather an anecdote from personal experience.
One time I made garlic parmesan mashed potatoes for a company thanksgiving pot-luck lunch. I've made this recipe a few dozen times before. However, this time I decided to get creative and go with parmesan, asiago, and romano cheeses instead of just parmesan. I also committed the ...
2
Segmenting the grapefruit is likely the least messy way, however, if you like the half a grapefruit thing:
There's something called a 'grapefuit knife', which has a curved, serated blade you can use to loosen the segment before you try to scoop them out with a spoon. You'll end up with a fair bit of liquid left over at the end, but you don't end up ...
2
Grapefruits are one of my favorite fruits, and you can get around the entire process by just tossing the whole fruit in a high quality juicer... then you can drink it and never have to worry about spraying yourself (unless you accidentally spill!)
You can go further by adding other fruits like strawberry or grape and even some vegetables with low acid ...
2
You can look up nutritional information at the USDA nutrient database. Their entry for orange peel says that 100g of orange peel contains: 97 Calories, various minerals, and a few vitamins. You can compare it raw oranges to see how it differs from the rest of the fruit. You can also look up orange juice, etc.
You can also get some of that information (plus ...
1
Wikipedia reports (without references):
Succade is sometimes used in cakes, as a filling for pound cake,
oliebol, plum pudding, florentines, sfogliatelle, fruitcake or
ontbijtkoek. It is also added to raisin bread. Succade is often
combined with currants, raisins and cherries. Candied citron peel is
often coated in chocolate and eaten as ...
1
The best way I've found so far (for juicing) is to just thoroughly squeeze the pieces between thumb and forefinger over the flat part of the juicer chute so the juice flows down the chute and the seeds pop out for removal.
1
We have a twin-screw masticating juicer (an older model Angel juicer) and although the seeds come out quite chewed up, I wouldn't want to drink them and we've never put the pulp back into the juice.
One possibility that comes to mind is to cut the oranges, etc., into pieces and separate out the pieces that have seeds from those that don't. Run the seedless ...
1
You can preserve it by dehydrating it; dehydrated lemon peel/zest is widely available. The folks over at Chowhound say that freezing works reasonably well too, if you keep out the air.
Rose Levy Beranbaum (who wrote The Cake Bible) says lemon zest can be frozen, and her community discusses ways to do that: everything from vacuum sealing to cutting off the ...
1
You can preserve it with sugar. It doesn't taste as perfectly fresh as the real thing, more like candied citrus, but it is definitely usable this way. It is well preserved, because it is too sweet/dehydrated for bacteria and mold to eat it. I don't know the exact technique used, but I think it involves covering the zest in sugar syrup and drying it out. Not ...
1
Maybe this should've been a comment, but oh, well:
Little grapefruit juice jets are in intrinsic part of the half-grapefruit experience. If I'm eating one by myself and reading, then I make sure it's not something I mind getting juice sprayed on. If I'm eating with other people, well, we all half-expect to get sprayed.
Face it: if God (or replace with ...
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