A glut of mandarin oranges: ideas?

[bhsimon]

My cooking buddy has just dropped off a huge supply of mandarin fruit and, besides peeling and eating, I’m not sure what to do with them. I’m in Sydney, Australia, and they have just ripened so they are lovely and sweet. I’d love to hear any ideas you might have.

I’m not that creative in the kitchen, so my ideas so far are pretty basic:

Jelly (jello)

Chocolate sauce

Ice cream (is that possible?)

Duck a la mandarin?

I’m open to all applications, sweet and savoury.

[Mjx]

Preserved/candied!

I'm pretty sure candying them would go pretty much as it does for clementines, and preserving them the way you do lemons (which usually calls for thin-skinned fruit) would probably be a great way of making a savoury product (there are lots more threads on this than the ones I've linked to).

[Panaderia Canadiense]

This couldn't be more timely - a friend of mine has just dropped off a huge volume of mini mandarins. Michaela, you think that the clementine method would work to candy these whole? The skins are crazy thin and there's almost no bitterness at all....

BHSimon - if your mandarins are large enough, you can juice them like you would regular oranges. Nothing in this world is quite so luxy as freshly squozen mandarin juice, and it makes a great base for cocktails as well.

[SylviaLovegren]

Send them to meeeeeeeeeee.

[Darienne]

I would try an Orange Julep. I have only ever used Navel oranges for my recipe and so I can't say what Mandarins would taste like. Do they have seeds? (which of course must be removed).

For our drink I use per person: one peeled navel orange thrown into the blender with a smidgen of zest, 1/4 cup commercial orange juice, 1/4 cup of whole milk, a slurp of vanilla, a teaspoon (or more to taste) of sugar and approximately 5 ice cubes each. Sorry, I don't measure this one carefully. Yummy.

[Baselerd]

I just made some mandarin sorbet - pretty tasty stuff. I'd recommend it if you have an ice cream maker.

[heidih]

When my tangerine tree is in overdrive I squeeze the juice and freeze in ice cube trays, then store in zip lock bags. They don't stick together so it is easy to pull out a few for a drink, sauce, marinade etc.

[Plantes Vertes]

Marmalade if you enjoy chopping citrus a lot. or brandied mandarins if not.

[Franci]

Dry the peel for Chinese recipes

[djyee100]

An easy fruit dessert. Peel and thinly slice the oranges, then drizzle with honey that's been warmed and infused with herbs.

Alice Waters uses lavender. Judy Rodgers (Zuni Cafe) makes her version with rosemary. I've tried the rosemary one with local wildflower honey, and though the taste was unusual, I liked it. So did my guests. This is a chance for you to play with different kinds of honey & complementary herbs in the kitchen.

Alice Waters' recipe: http://willothewhisk.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/sliced-mandarin-oranges-with-lavender-honey/

Judy Rodgers' recipe: http://gourmandistan.com/2011/12/28/a-small-citrusy-step-away-from-the-treacle/

I haven't tried this one, but it's an intriguing idea: Mandarin Orange Dust. If you dislike the bitterness of pith (I do), you can zest the oranges, peel & cut away the pith, then dry the zest and fruit slices.
http://www.thekitchn.com/make-this-mandarin-orange-dust-143717

ETA: For bakers...a neighbor once shared a cake with coffee frosting garnished with mandarin orange segments. That combination of sweet coffee with oranges tasted memorably good. My long-ago neighbor's cake was garnished with canned mandarin segments. I believe that one could duplicate these flavors with fresh mandarin supremes cooked in a simple sugar syrup.

Edited May 28, 2013 by djyee100 (log)

[hongda]

Mandarin-cello? Limoncello made with mandarins?

[bhsimon]

Thank you for all the cool ideas. I’ll contemplate these while I sip on a glass of fresh juice.

[janeer]

An easy fruit dessert. Peel and thinly slice the oranges, then drizzle with honey that's been warmed and infused with herbs.

Alice Waters uses lavender. Judy Rodgers (Zuni Cafe) makes her version with rosemary. I've tried the rosemary one with local wildflower honey, and though the taste was unusual, I liked it. So did my guests. This is a chance for you to play with different kinds of honey & complementary herbs in the kitchen.

Alice Waters' recipe: http://willothewhisk.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/sliced-mandarin-oranges-with-lavender-honey/

Judy Rodgers' recipe: http://gourmandistan.com/2011/12/28/a-small-citrusy-step-away-from-the-treacle/

This reminded me of something I used to make a lot many years ago, from the wonderful Fine Preserving from Catherine Plagemann. These preserved orange slices were sensational with all kinds of poultry, meat, cheese; I don't see why you couldn't make them with mandarins. Try your library for a copy.

[bhsimon]

Plans for the moment:

• Dried peels for tea and cooking
• Candied peels
• Mandarincello
• Mandarin sorbet with mandarin jelly (jello)
• Mandarin-chocolate sauce to pour over mandarin orange ice-cream
• Braised duck legs with mandarin peel in the braising liquid

Thank you for the inspiration. My partner’s solution to this delectable problem was to give away a huge portion our glut. Still enough to try some interesting recipes, and I’m glad to be able to share the mandarin joy. The fruit comes from my cooking buddy’s mum’s tree.

I’m going to try a modernist technique for the sorbet and remove all the membrane with Pectinex Ultra Sperse SPL to achieve a really clean mandarin flavour. Mmmmm, I love sorbet.

[Mjx]

This couldn't be more timely - a friend of mine has just dropped off a huge volume of mini mandarins. Michaela, you think that the clementine method would work to candy these whole? The skins are crazy thin and there's almost no bitterness at all....

. . . .

From what I've read, the methods used for clementines should work equally well for your mini mandarins, but I've never tried this (I was really hoping someone with experience would comment); by the time it occurred to me that candying whole fruit was something that could be done at home, my kitchen access had become too restricted to give it a go, but while I bide my time, I pretty much devour every article and discussion regarding this (which how I came to think of the threads I linked to).

[SobaAddict70]

use the zest for citrus salt.

[ChrisZ]

A recipe for mandarin creme brûlée popped up in the SMH today:

http://www.goodfood.com.au/good-food/cook/recipe/mandarin-creme-brulee-20121123-29w95.html

I can still remember a mandarin souffle from a french restaurant in the late 80's. The souffle was served in a hollowed out mandarin - pretty amazing stuff back then.

[bhsimon]

A recipe for mandarin creme brûlée popped up in the SMH today:

http://www.goodfood.com.au/good-food/cook/recipe/mandarin-creme-brulee-20121123-29w95.html

I can still remember a mandarin souffle from a french restaurant in the late 80's. The souffle was served in a hollowed out mandarin - pretty amazing stuff back then.

Awesome. Thank you.