[Sca-cooks] Candied Orange Peel

[Johnna Holloway]

Having read through a number of these posts, my own
thoughts are that this might work depending upon the type
of orange that you have received. Oranges vary a great deal
in their peels. Over the course of a year one will get thin peels
or thick peels. In terms of peels, I have now worked with a variety of 
citrus fruits,
including oranges, lemons, limes, pomelos and grapefruits.
The other Citrus fruits all vary in the thickness of the peels.
The oranges which you have received might or might not work, but that 
doesn't mean
that the idea wouldn't work. You may need to proceed with a different 
type of orange.

As for peeling--
During the course of my work with oranges and candying them,
"I finally settled on using a an expensive Zyliss peeler, although an
Oxo or Good Grips peeler might work well for you.
Try using different vegetable peelers or knives until you find a peeler
and a method that works best for you.
I also have settled after much experimentation on using a set
of Global paring knives. I find that a narrow slightly hooked (sometimes 
called bird’s beak curved knife) paring knife works well."

Pith or no pith varies from person to person and source to source.
"Numerous modern cookbooks in their candied peel recipes advocate 
boiling the peels with the white pith left on. After boiling them, one 
is told to then scrape out the softened white pith from the boiled 
orange peel with a spoon or a melon ball cutter. I find this to be 
largely to be unsatisfactory. It seems to me that it is far easier to 
spend a few more minutes peeling the fruits carefully at the start than 
it is to try and get the pith out of a piece of softened boiled peel. 
Other recipes suggest that a thin layer of white pith makes the peel 
softer and is desirable. Grapefruit peels, by the way, which when 
candied for eventual dipping into chocolate seem to always have some 
white pith left on them. ....In the past, numerous recipes call for 
boiling initially until the fruit peels are translucent. This may have 
been necessary when only /bitter/ varieties of fruits were being used. 
It’s not so necessary for many of today’s varieties." from my book

I would have to warn that the cutters you own may not have a sharp
enough edge to cut through certain peels effectively without tearing.
Certain sections may cut through. Other edges may not cut at all.

I would also urge you not to totally destroy the enjoyment of eating the
fruits while attempting to get to the peels. Having lovely oranges
in a cold winter in the late Medieval period would have been a gift
of great luxury. Enjoy them while you work on the peels.

Johnnae llyn Lewis
> I have received a lovely package of fruit through the mail from my parents 
> and the oranges are so bright and beautiful, I can't help thinking of 
> candying the peels as a treat. 
>
> I have some tiny cookie cutters (say 1/2 to 3/8 inch across) and I was 
> thinking of cutting the peel into shapes for decorative purposes.  Is this 
> best done before or during or after the boiling process? 
>
> Best, 
>
> Helena 
>
>