Tag Archives: orange

Lit by orange light.…

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I was invited to a friend’s house last night, on one con­di­tion. We had to sit in the dark. It turns out we were mark­ing Earth Hour by eschew­ing elec­tri­city. I admit that our ges­ture of solid­ar­ity to the planet was small, but sixty minutes of candle-lit gloom became slightly addict­ive. Four hours later we were still sit­ting in the murky light shed by a dozen candles.

Although gentle candle-light is flat­ter­ing to a slightly sag­ging com­plex­ion, it turns out that cook­ing in the vir­tual dark is a night­mare. But in the interests of Earth Hour camaraderie, I have the per­fect recipe, one inspired by the great chef Skye Gyn­gell. It’s so easy you could make this dish with your eyes shut. And so brightly zing­ily fresh-tasting is it, you could light a room with its orange glow.

Oranges in Rose­mary Syrup

Serves 4

5 or 6 sweet, juicy oranges. I used Mal­taise san­guines, a deli­cious vari­ety of blood orange

2 good sprigs of rose­mary, about 10cm long

150ml light, clear honey

Cut a thin slice from the top and bot­tom of each orange. Stand the fruit on a chop­ping board and, with a very sharp knife, slice the peel off in curving down­ward move­ments. Reserve a couple of table­spoons of the juice that col­lects on the board as you pre­pare the oranges. Slice the oranges thinly and arrange on a plate.

Bend and bruise the rose­mary in your hands to release the aroma and place in a small pan with the honey and the reserved orange juice. Warm gently for ten minutes over a low heat. Allow to cool for a fur­ther ten minutes, remove the rose­mary and pour the honey over the sliced oranges. Dec­or­ate with another sprig of rose­mary and it’s done.

After my even­ing of enforced gloom I walked home by the gentle light of a wind-up torch. But open­ing the front door was like walk­ing into a harshly lit lift in a muni­cipal car-park. Blink­ing mole-like at my slightly alarm­ing reflec­tion in the dazzling hall­way mir­ror, I real­ised there’s another peril to enter­tain­ing by candle light. It’s impossible to see quite how many times your wine glass has been filled up.

Blood Orange Posset

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Like people, there are recipes blessed with both beauty and eleg­ant names. When my daugh­ter was four years old, she heard a waiter in a Por­tuguese res­taur­ant say that the fish of the day was ‘pan-fried-fillet-of-golden-bream’. It had such a poetic lilt to it that my daugh­ter repeated the name of this dish end­lessly, enchanted by its rhythm.

Sadly ‘Blood Orange Pos­set’ got a rough deal when names were being handed out. The word ‘blood’ is never good when attached to an eleg­ant pud­ding and ‘pos­set’ (like ‘gus­set’, ‘cor­set’ and ‘thicket’) is just plain hor­rible. But don’t be fooled. Blood Orange Pos­set is a divinely creamy con­fec­tion with the fresh sting of Sicilian oranges and the extra­vag­ant indol­ence of double cream. It’s also the easi­est pud­ding I know.

Blood Orange Pos­set With Can­died Orange Peel

Serves 4

For the Posset

2 blood oranges (ordin­ary oranges or even lem­ons will work too, but you won’t get the bubblegum-pink final res­ult). You will need the juice plus the finely grated zest

500ml double cream

120g caster sugar

Bring the cream and sugar to a boil in a pan and then bubble gently for 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the juice and zest. Stir to com­bine. Pour the mix­ture into glasses or bowls and refri­ger­ate for at least 3 hours until it’s set.

For the Can­died Peel

Peel of 2 blood oranges

Half cup caster sugar

One cup water

Peel long, very fine strips from the oranges and put them in a pan with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, drain the water off and then repeat twice more. In the mean­time, in a sep­ar­ate pan, com­bine half a cup of sugar and one cup of water and bring to the boil. Turn down to a sim­mer for a couple of minutes and then add the pre­vi­ously boiled orange peel to the sugar solu­tion. Sim­mer for a fur­ther ten minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, allow to cool and then hook out clusters of peel from the pan with a fork and place care­fully on top of each posset.

All you need to do now is to eat your Blood Orange Pos­set while dream­ing up a new name for it. Since I’m speak­ing as someone who cre­ated a ukelele pop group when she was nine years old called The Umbil­ical Chord I think I should leave the re-naming to you.