WHAT TO DO WITH BITTER ORANGES

 

Bitter orange tree in my garden.

Sure, you could make marmalade. But, not if  you’re the city of Sevilla, where ornamental bitter oranges are emblematic. Sevilla has some 50,000 urban orange trees, creating a major headache for the crews which, during January and February, must pick the fruit before it rots and falls. The oranges on city streets cannot be used for making commercial marmalade because the leaves and skin of the fruit absorb contaminants. 

A pilot project started in Sevilla in 2020 uses street oranges to make juice, which, in fermenting, creates methane that can be converted into biofuel to generate electricity to power the city’s residual water treatment plants. So far, this accounts for only about 3.5 percent of the fruit collected. With funding, the project may continue to expand. Another 7.7 percent of oranges goes to dumps where some become compost. The lion’s share—88.8 percent—is used for industrial purposes such as the distillation of essential oils and to manufacture livestock feed. (These figures are from an article in Diario de Sevilla.)

These oranges, native to China, were first planted in Spain by the Romans. But it was the Moors (Arabs) who extended the plantings widely. The essential oils were used medicinally and as a fragrance. The naranja amarga, known in English as the “Seville orange,” is not actually bitter. The peel is bitter, the juice is sour. Really sour. As mouth-puckeringly tart as lemons. 

Sour oranges can be used in any way you use lemons. Squeeze some on vegetables (brilliant with artichokes and asparagus); on fried fish, in salads. The juice makes a terrific vinaigrette. Or, use it to make a classic orange sauce as in Duck a l'Orange. Biofuel, anybody?

A variation on classic Duck a l'Orange, here made with duck breast. The sauce is made with the juice of sour oranges.

Coleslaw with a difference--shredded cabbage, fennel and carrots are mixed with pieces of sweet orange and dressed with a sour orange vinaigrette.

The same vinaigrette used for the coleslaw is poured over roast salmon. The vinaigrette is made with equal parts sour orange juice and extra virgin olive oil, a half-teaspoon of sesame oil, grated ginger, grated (sweet) orange zest, and chile paste to taste. 

Roast fillet of salmon with a side of slaw, both dressed with sour orange vinaigrette and speckled with black sesame.

Sour orange sponge pudding, baked in oven-proof cups.

Duck Breast a l’Orange

Magret de Pato a la Naranja

Classic French Duck a l’Orange is actually Canard au Bigarade—duck with a sauce made with sour oranges—not, a la Julia Child, with sweet oranges. Bigarade is the Provençal name for the Seville bitter orange. So tangy is the sauce that it really needs the addition of caramel, which both deepens the color of the sauce and sweetens it.

Although the classic recipe calls for roast duck, I’m making a version using magret, boneless duck breast, that cooks in minutes. 

Starting point for the orange sauce is a deeply flavored brown stock. Make it with beef bones or pieces of duck carcass that have been browned in the oven. Add aromatics and herbs and canned tomatoes for depth of color. Take care not to add too much salt, as the stock is going to be reduced, which concentrates the salt.

You can make caramel (melt sugar until dark brown, dissolve it in some water or vinegar to make it  sauce consistency) or, as I chose to do, use store-bought bottled liquid caramel (look for it on the shelves with the baking and pudding ingredients). 

Sour oranges for juicing.

Makes enough orange sauce for 3 duck breasts or 1 whole roast duck.

1 orange (bitter or sweet)

1 ½ cups brown stock (beef and/or duck)

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 ½ cups sour orange juice, strained

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons liquid caramel

2 tablespoons rendered duck fat or butter

Duck breasts, each about 14 ounces

Sweet orange segments to garnish (optional)

Use a vegetable peeler or zester to remove the zest from the orange without any white pith . Cut the zest into julienne slivers. Blanch the zest in boiling water 1 minute and drain. Return the zest to the pan with fresh water, bring again to a boil. Cook sweet orange zest 4 minutes and drain. If using bitter orange peel, cook it 10 minutes. Drain well. Pat dry and reserve the slivered zest.

Place ¼ cup of the stock in a small bowl with the cornstarch. Stir to blend. Combine the remaining stock and sour orange juice in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to medium and cook, uncovered, until the liquid is reduced by half (about 20 minutes). Whisk in the cornstarch mixture and cook until the sauce is slightly thickened. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat and whisk in the liquid caramel. (Sauce can be made in advance. Reheat when duck is ready to serve.) Before serving, whisk duck fat or butter into the hot sauce.

Score the fat of the duck breast.

For the duck breast: Use a sharp knife to score the fatty side of the duck breast in a diagonal cross-hatch, without cutting into the flesh. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Allow to stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Heat a heavy skillet on medium heat. Brown the duck breast, fat side down, until fat is crisped and browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Very carefully drain off excess fat. Turn the duck breast and cook until browned, 3 to 4 minutes. Turn the breast on end to brown the edges. The duck should be browned on the outside and rare in the center.

Remove to a cutting board and allow it to stand 10 minutes. Slice crosswise into ½-inch slices. Arrange slices on a platter or individual plates. Spoon some of the sauce over the duck. Sprinkle with the strips of zest. Garnish, if desired, with sweet orange segments. 

Tangy orange sauce complements the rich and fatty duck breast. The segments used as garnish are sweet orange.

Duck breast is usually served rare. Strips of blanched orange zest garnish the duck.

Sour Orange Sponge Pudding

Flan Bizcochado de Naranja Amarga

This is based on an old favorite dessert recipe, Lemon Sponge Pudding (in The Joy of Cooking by Rombauer and Becker). I like it tart! I’ve used less sugar than called for in the original recipe, even though I have substituted sour orange juice for sweet. 

Serves 4.

½ cup sugar

1 ½ tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon grated zest from a sweet orange

2 large eggs, separated

3 tablespoons flour

1/3 cup sour orange juice

1 cup evaporated milk

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Cream together the sugar and butter. Add the zest. Beat in the egg yolks. Beat in the orange juice. Add the flour and milk.

Beat the egg whites in a clean bowl until they form stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the batter. 

Grease 4 custard cups or oven-proof pudding bowls. Set them in a pan with 1 inch of hot water. Ladle the batter into the cups. Bake until the pudding is set, 40 minutes.  Serve the puddings in the custard cups in which they baked.

More recipes using bitter oranges:

Turkey Breast with Sour Orange Marinade.

Bitter Orange Marmalade.

Beer-Battered Fish with Sour Orange Sauce.

Fish Soup with Sour Orange (Cachorreñas).

Anchovies in Bitter Orange Escabeche.

Artichoke and Orange Salad.

Sour Orange Mayonnaise.

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU BITTER ORANGES--

 

Bitter oranges, blue sky.

I once lived in an old house in the pueblo with a big, overgrown garden behind it. Stone dry walls divided the sloping garden into terraces which were planted with trees—an olive, a fig, orange and lemon, peach, pear and apricot, plus a flamboyant pomegranate and an exotic chirimoya.  

Having never had an orange tree in my backyard before, I thrilled to its progress from fragrant bloom to small green nubbins to ripening oranges. When they looked sufficiently ripe, I picked one, peeled it and popped a section in my mouth. It was unbelievably sour! My tree apparently had never been grafted and made only bitter “marmalade” oranges. What to do with so many sour oranges? Make marmalade. I made so much that I put a sign on the front door and sold it to passers-by. My marmalade pesetas went a long way in 1967.

The bitter, bigarade or Seville orange (the peel is bitter, the juice is sour), called agria or cachorreña, is still grown ornamentally and is used as root stock for varieties of sweet oranges. I recently saw a news item that Sevilla, where the collection of rotting oranges on city streets is an annual problem, will start recycling the fruit to make bio-fuel to generate electricity. 

I have a bitter orange tree in the garden where I live now. The sweet orange graft a couple years ago didn’t take, so I’m gathering the bitter fruit to make a very traditional Málaga fish soup, sopa de cachorreñas (link to recipe below). I’m also using the sour juice  in some other ways—in an adobo marinade for turkey breast and in an olive oil mayonnaise to sauce the turkey and asparagus.

Turkey breast marinated in sour orange juice with asparagus and a salad of sweet clementines.

Blender mayonnaise with extra virgin olive oil and the juice of sour oranges.

Serve the orange mayo with asparagus and with the turkey.

Turkey Breast with Sour Orange Marinade

Pechuga de Pavo en Adobo con Naranja Agria

1 ½ - 2 pounds boneless turkey breast, in one piece

1 teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, crushed

½ teaspoon smoked pimentón (smoked paprika)

Pinch of pimentón picante (hot paprika)

3 tablespoons sour orange juice

½ teaspoon oregano

Sprigs of fresh thyme

2 bay leaves

3 tablespoons olive oil

Sour Orange Mayonnaise, to accompany (recipe follows)

Adobo marinade for turkey breast.

     Place the turkey in a non-reactive container. Sprinkle on all sides with salt and pepper. Add the garlic, two kinds of pimentón, orange juice, oregano, thyme and bay leaves. Pour the oil over the turkey. Cover the container and refrigerate at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours, turning it once or twice. 

     Bring the turkey to room temperature before roasting.

     Preheat oven to 400ºF. Place the turkey in an oven-safe roasting dish just big enough to hold it. Pour all the marinade over it. Roast the turkey 10 minutes. 

     Lower the oven temperature to 350ºF. Remove the turkey from the oven and baste it with juices in the pan. Return to the oven and roast until an instant-read thermometer registers 145ºF., about 45 minutes longer. (Timing will depend on the thickness of the piece of turkey. Take care not to overcook it.)

If the turkey is to be served hot, let it rest 10 minutes before carving. If to be served cold, let the whole piece cool, then refrigerate it, covered. Place the chilled meat on a cutting board and slice thinly. 

Serve the turkey accompanied by Sour Orange Mayonnaise.

Sour Orange Mayonnaise

Mayonesa con Naranja Agria

This quantity of sour orange juice thins the mayonnaise, although it will firm up somewhat when chilled. If sour orange juice is not available, substitute lemon juice or vinegar or try vinegar with sweet orange juice. 

1 large egg

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon smoked pimentón (smoked paprika)

½ teaspoon pimentón (paprika, not smoked)

¾ cup extra virgin olive oil

1/3 cup sour orange juice

Place the egg in a blender container. Add the salt and pimentón. Add the oil. Run the blender until the egg and oil emulsify and thicken. If using an immersion blender, then move the wand up and down a few times to incorporate any oil that didn’t mix. Pour in the orange juice and blend again. 

Store the sauce, covered and refrigerated, up to 1 week. 

Mayonnaise with sour orange juice is the consistency of thick cream. For the garnish, blanch strips of orange zest in boiling water, then cut in thin julienne strips. Add a dash of pimentón for color.

The sour juice substitutes for lemon or vinegar in mayonnaise. It goes well with asparagus, artichokes, green beans, potatoes, fish, poultry. 

Orange Marmalade

Mermelada de Naranja

For making marmalade, save seeds which add pectin that helps the marmalade jell.

This is the traditional recipe I used for making orange marmalade. It’s a three-day procedure. You first weigh the fruit. For each kilo of oranges, allow one litre of water and one kilo of sugar. If you like a very bitter marmalade, use equal quantities of bitter, Seville oranges and sweet oranges, plus a couple of lemons. If you prefer a sweeter flavor, use a greater proportion of sweet oranges to bitter ones and only one lemon.

Day 1: Wash the oranges, weigh them and soak them in fresh water for several hours. Then shred, chop or finely slice them, catching all the juice and reserving the seeds in a separate bowl. Add enough water to cover the seeds and set them aside. Add the required quantity of water (1 litre per kilo of oranges) to the oranges. Cover and let them set for 24 hours.

Day 2: Cook the oranges very slowly until they are tender, about one hour. Cover and let set overnight.

Day 3: Add the sugar and let the oranges set for 6 hours. Put the seeds and their liquid (it will be quite gelatinous from the pectin) into a strainer and strain the liquid into the oranges. Bring the oranges to a boil and regulate the heat so they just bubble gently. Stir occasionally. (A heat-tamer pad under the pot helps prevent scorching.) The marmalade is done when a small quantity dropped on a cold surface does not run. Timing depends on the quantity of oranges being processed, but the jelling can easily take an hour. Pack while hot into sterile jars and seal.

More recipes with bitter oranges:

Fish Soup with Sour Orange.

Anchovies in Sour Orange Escabeche.

Beer-Battered Fish with Sour Orange Sauce.

RINGING THE CHANGES ON SOUR ORANGES

Do you ever start out to make one recipe, then change your mind and turn the ingredients into something else altogether? That’s what I did. I picked sour oranges from a tree that’s about to be cut back and grafted to produce sweet eating oranges. I intended to make a traditional fish soup, called cachorreñas.

Bitter orange tree will be grafted to produce sweet oranges.

Cachorreña is the local name for the bitter Seville orange, the marmalade orange or bigarade. The peel of the fruit is bitingly bitter; the juice is mouth-puckeringly sour. The bitter orange is used as rootstock for growing sweet oranges and is also grown for its decorative beauty and the heady perfume of orange blossoms in springtime.

I had gotten as far as making the fish stock for the soup, with head, bones and trimmings from fresh hake, with a strip of orange zest, a whole tomato, green pepper and onion. That’s when it occurred to me to make a thick sauce instead of soup. And, instead of cooking the hake fillets in the soup, maybe bake them? Grill? Batter-fried!

Crisp, beer-battered fried fish is served with sour orange sauce and sweet orange salad on the side.

In Spain, the bitter oranges are used as an aliño, dressing, for salads. They can be substituted for sweet oranges in remojón, orange and cod salad. The juice is added to marinades and meat stews. Sopa de cachorreñas is a fish soup with sour orange typical of Málaga. In Cádiz a somewhat similar fishermen’s soup is caldillo de perro, or “dog” soup.

Mayonnaise made with sour orange juice in place of vinegar or lemon is terrific on asparagus or artichokes. The juice is perfect for making Peruvian ceviche, marinated fish. Use it, too, in Persian sweet-sour stews.  And, there's always marmalade made with whole, shredded bitter oranges that are exceptionally rich in pectin.

In Spain, bitter orange trees grow in public squares and streets, the fruit free for the picking. Bitter oranges can be found in the US in Latino groceries during winter months. (This is the end of the season.) If not available, I suggest using half white wine vinegar for the sourness, and half sweet orange juice.

Sour Orange Sauce
Salsa de Cachorreñas

Sour orange juice makes a tangy sauce to serve with fish, shrimp or vegetables such as asparagus.

This makes a pouring sauce that can be served room temperature. For a thicker, dipping sauce, double the quantity of bread (thickener) and add more salt to season. The sauce is also good with a couple spoonfuls of mayonnaise beaten into it. Try it with shrimp.


Makes 1 cup sauce.

Bitter peel, sour juice.

1 tomato
½ green bell pepper
1 small onion
Sprig parsley
1 bay leaf
Water or fish stock
Salt
½ cup packed day-old bread crumbs (1 ounce)
½ teaspoon pimentón (paprika), not smoked
1-2 cloves garlic
½ cup sour orange juice
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Dash of hot pepper sauce
1 tablespoon chopped scallions

Place the whole tomato, pepper, onion, parsley and bay leaf in a pan and cover with water or fish stock. Add 1 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil and cook until the vegetables are very soft, about 15 minutes. Skim out the tomato, pepper and onion and discard the water, parsley and bay.

Place the bread crumbs in a blender. Add the pimentón. Slip the skins off the tomato and pepper and add them to the blender with the onion, garlic and sour orange juice. Blend until smooth. Gradually blend in the oil. Season the sauce with ½ teaspoon salt and a dash of hot pepper sauce. Stir in the chopped scallions.

Serve the sauce at room temperature.

Beer-Battered Fried Fish
Pescado Frito con Rebozado de Cerveza

Batter-fried fish is crisp on the outside, moist on the inside.

Use a white fish such as hake, cod, grouper or halibut.

Serves 4.

1 ½ pounds fish fillets
Salt and pepper
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
¾ cup lager beer
Olive oil for frying

Cut the fish in 8 equal-sized pieces and place them on a plate in one layer. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper.

Place 2 tablespoons of the flour in a small bowl. Combine the remaining flour in a bowl with the salt and baking powder. Beat in the beer to make a fairly smooth batter about the consistency of thick cream. Let the batter set 30 minutes. 

Pat the pieces of fish with paper towels to absorb excess moisture. Sprinkle the reserved 2 tablespoons of flour on both sides of the fish.

Place oil to a depth of 2 inches in a wide, heavy pan. Heat the oil until it is shimmering  (360ºF/ 180ºC). A drop of the batter should immediately sizzle and rise to the top of the oil.

Dip the pieces of fish in the batter, letting excess run off. Place them, a few at a time, in the hot oil. Fry until golden on one side. Carefully turn the fish and fry until golden on reverse side (about 5 minutes total). Remove with a skimmer and place on paper towels to absorb excess oil. 

The fish stock I made with orange peel is in the freezer, ready to make the sour orange fish soup on another day.

Fish Soup with Sour Orange.

Orange and Cod Salad (Remojón).

Perhaps we should leave one branch of the tree ungrafted. I like having a few sour oranges every year.