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Cutting Citrus Suprêmes


Chris Hennes

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The recent topic on White Grapefruit got me thinking about my favorite way to eat citrus: as suprêmes. I was never a huge fan of peeling oranges and still having all that membrane left when you ate them, so when I learned how to suprême I never looked back. Recently, though, I've watched TV chefs cutting supremes in a number of different ways, and was wondering which is best.

My technique is (after peeling the fruit with a paring knife) to hold the fruit in my left hand and the paring knife in my right, then to cut straight along the membrane on the right side of a segment. When the knife "bottoms out" I rotate it so that the blade sort of scoops under the corner of the supreme and pops up the other side of the membrane. How do you cut yours?

Chris Hennes
Director of Operations
chennes@egullet.org

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I pare and then set it down on the board instead of holding it in my hand. For something small like a clementine I'll do the cut you described, but for larger ones I often cut down on one side of the V and then down on the other side -- so instead of a continuous V where you start at the top and "bottom out" then cut from bottom back to top, I'll cut down the left side of the V (top to bottom), lift the knife, and then cut down the right side of the V separately. The segment pops out, and I rotate the fruit and start again.

The continuous V is probably faster, but the two-step V works for me. The juice stays on the board instead of my hand, and if I'm intending to use the juice, I can pour it off the board into a bowl/pan/whatever.

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...The continuous V is probably faster, but the two-step V works for me. The juice stays on the board instead of my hand, and if I'm intending to use the juice, I can pour it off the board into a bowl/pan/whatever.

I do the Chris H./Scubadoo/jsmeeker method, but do it over a bowl to catch the juice, flicking the supremes into another bowl. I always lose too much of the juice if I do it on the cutting board. Then squeeze the heck out of the "guts" into the juice bowl to get the last of the luscious goodness.

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