Sugar Coating the Sour Stuff

Cutting into a huge Pomelo, our island grapefruit.

So it turns out that not everything sour is unpleasant what you add sugar. I'm learning this both inside the kitchen and out. Lemons? Lemon Curd. Boy who dropped me like a hot tamale? Good riddance and good motivation to do better for myself. Grapefruit? Fresca Soda! (that's Grapefruit Soda, peeps....) Boy du jour who I am currently crushing on but who toes the other side of political lines? Making Out a bunch so you never have a chance to talk politics. Limes? Candied Lime Peel. See? Something sweet can come of anything sour!

So, with today's lesson on sweetening the sour in mind, I am currently standing in my kitchen wearing yoga pants (ha! maybe if I dress up and PRETEND I'm going to work out after baking it MIGHT happen. Not likely, but I digress...) getting ready to make some awesome candied citrus peel. I'm going to make the candy with lemon, lime and pomelo (island grapefruit). The lemon will be for topping lemon curd tarts, the grapefruit will be for something undetermined  (I have a grapefruit in my kitchen so it's getting candied) and the lime is destined for some island-inspired Lime, Coconut, Mac Nut, White Chocolate Chip, Spiced Oatmeal Cookies. Shoots, Cuz! (translation: Wow. That's really something, friend!)

Back to the Citrus Peel.  I'm gonna call on my nemesis/ mentor Martha freakin' Stewart again. That woman has way too many good recipes to ignore. Every time I use her recipes they turn out pretty fantastic, so that sweetens the sour of her too.

Peeling the pith from the limes.

Candied Citrus Peel

recipe modified from Martha Stewart

• 1/4 Pomelo Grapefruit
• 5 Limes
• 2 Lemons
• 1 1/2 cups sugar

With a sharp paring knife, slice off ends of pomelo, limes, and lemons. Following curve of fruit, cut away outermost peel, leaving most of the white pith on fruit. Slice peel lengthwise into 1/4-inch-wide strips. 

Making a mess with pith, juice & peels.

OK Martha- you make this sound easy. It's not. It took me almost 2 hours to do this to all the fruit because it didn't come off easily. Most of my strips are more like chunks... with holes in them.

In a medium pot of boiling water, cook peel until tender, about 10 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer peel to a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet; spread in a single layer to dry slightly, about 15 minutes.

Um, yeah... Martha, how do these sit on the wire rack without falling through? I set mine on paper towels on top of the rack. They didn't get very dry, but I am getting tired after being at this for over 2 hours now.

Drying rind and cocktail juice.

In a medium saucepan, bring 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water to a boil over high, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add peel and boil until it turns translucent and syrup thickens, 10-20 minutes. 

It starts to look like you're cooking sardines with the bubbling little slices of peel. I cooked them until the sugar syrup had reduced to about 1/3-1/2 its volume. 

With slotted spoon, transfer peel to wire rack, separating the pieces as needed.

Then pour the citrusy sugar syrup into a jar and put in the fridge for future use. Hello, cocktails!!

Let peel dry 1 hour. Toss with 1/2 cup sugar to coat.

In retrospect, the recipe might have meant "Make all this great candied rind from all these fruits... separately." Once I removed them from the sugar syrup they're all kind of the same color.  I think I can pick out which fruit is which from the shape, and you can taste the difference.  But it might be easier to do them separately in the future.

 So yum. The sour becomes sweet. These buggas are good. I keep snacking on them...gotta save some for cookies. And yoga? Yeah right.