CANDIED ORANGE PEEL
Today’s recipe is a special collaboration between me and one of my most favourite local companies here in Victoria, BC. I have had the honour and total pleasure of doing photography for Abeego for a little over a year now and finally we are doing a collab together (about time!!).
This post is not sponsored, all of the opinions are truly mine and I am just so excited to either introduce you to this special product or maybe you have your drawers and fridge stocked up already with it and you already love Abeego as much as I do!
Abeego is a reusable beeswax food wrap that lets your food breathe and keeps it fresher longer, meaning you can have fresh, not wilted, lettuce for days! Honestly, I was shocked at how long it keeps my lettuce fresh, after I wrapped my first bundle I was hooked! I wish I had paid better attention to the amount of days it kept my lettuce fresh, but I am pretty sure it was at least 7 or 8. Everyday I would unwrap and run to Paul being like, seriously it is still crispy! Now I know, who has lettuce for that long without eating it already right?! Well we usually use lettuce for burgers or sandwiches (yes, I know we need to make more salads haha) or tacos, usually a garnish kind of thing. I always hated wasting so much of it because it would wilt within a day or two most times and we had hardly used any of it (again, we should make more salads!), so when Abeego came into my life I was one happy gal knowing I wasn’t wasting anymore lettuce and it could last so long. It also saved me from running to the farmers market for lettuce as often.
It is not just for lettuce though, I use it to wrap up half onions, avocados, peppers, and herbs (it keeps herbs so so well). But my favourite way to use Abeego is for kitchen scraps. Paul and I like to make a roast chicken once a week or at least every couple of weeks and I will always make a large batch of bone broth after the roast. Any good bone broth has a large amount of kitchen scraps in it, so what I like to do is during the week save up my scraps and wrap them in Abeego to save for our Sunday night roast bone broth (think the green leek ends, onion ends, carrots chunks or anything that has maybe started to wilt, it all goes into the broth), you can actually find my recipe here if you want to try it). Ps. that bone broth chicken soup is an Autumn/Winter necessity, it is better than Grandma’s trust me!
Recently though I saved up a bunch of orange peels, wrapped them in Abeego until I had 3 or 4 and made candied orange peel with the scraps! Candied orange peel is so much easier than you think and it is a really delicious little treat. Now, it is quite sweet, 2 or 3 small pieces goes a long way to curb that sweet tooth. I personally like them best with no extra sugar coating, but you can roll them in sugar once they have set overnight, you could also get really fun and roll them in a chopped nut or dip them in chocolate or both! They also make a very cute little holiday gift.
Another way to use them is in a few different dishes at home, like these, candied orange peel and black currant shortbread cookies are a fave of mine, they would also be delicious in a bundt cake or orange loaf; but also savoury dishes, like a moroccan chicken, or a rice pilaf. You can totally get creative with them or like I said just eat them plain and simple.
Candied Orange Peel
Ingredients
3 oranges (I used cara cara)
2 cups water
1 cup sugar, plus more for coating
1 scored vanilla bean or 2 tbsp pure vanilla
Optional coatings
coarse sugar (cane, coconut, raw)
finely chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans)
melted chocolate
fine coconut
Directions
Gently wash the outside of the oranges.
Use a knife to slice off a small amount on the top and bottom of the orange (side tip you could save these and make my Autumn potpourri), then score the orange through the peel to the pith (without cutting through the orange), making 4 cuts lengthwise. You can save the peel in Abeego until you have enough peel or you can save the orange slices in Abeego to make the candied peel straight away).
Carefully remove each section of orange peel, you want to remove them in whole pieces. Slice into 1/4-inch wide strips.
Add the orange peel strips to a pot and cover with about an inch of water. Bring this to a boil, then drain over a colander and repeat once more. This will take the bitterness out of the orange peel.
Add the orange peel strips back to the pot along with 2 cups of water, 1 cup of sugar and the scored vanilla bean or pure vanilla (you could also add spices here, cinnamon sticks, star anise, nutmeg, cloves etc). Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer uncovered for about 35-40 minutes. They are done when the orange peels are slightly translucent and most of the simple syrup has evaporated . Turn off the heat and let the orange peel cool in the remaining sugar for 5 minutes.
Use tongs to move the orange peel to a drying rack set over parchment paper. Let the orange peel dry for 24 hours.
There should be about 1/4-1/3 of simple syrup left, you can store this in a glass jar and use in cocktails, juices, cakes, or even drizzled on top of ice cream.
Coat the orange peel in optional choices above or just eat as is! The orange peel will stay good in air tight container or glass jar in the fridge for 4 weeks.