Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Citrus Sugar and Citrus Salt

When Jamie and I made marmalade last year, it dawned on us after we made this mess that we should do something with the peels that weren't going into the marmalade:



This year, I thought ahead and took a vegetable peeler to the tangelos, blood oranges and grapefruit before I segmented them.


I ended up with quite the peel yield.  I knew I wanted to do something sweet and something savory.  I settled on a small batch of citrus salt and a small batch of citrus sugar.  The peels not used in these batches went into the freezer and are hanging out until I determine their future.


Of course, the citrus salt recipe I was inspired by called for Maldon Sea Salt, which I did not have.  I have been curious about it anyway, so I picked some up, even though I could have made do without it.  When I got home, I became curious about how many types of salt we have.  I knew it was a sizeable amount but hadn't taken stock before.  Well, folks, I pulled them out of all of their hiding spaces.  The verdict: we have an obscene amount of salts. What harm would adding one more do!?

salt and minced citrus peels
I blended the salt and peels together in a spice grinder in about a 1:1 ratio and then baked it at 225F until it was dry.  I let it cool, blended it up again and then mixed in a little more salt.


We've been enjoying it as a finishing salt with our weekend breakfasts and over greens.


I made the citrus sugar by blending minced peel and sugar in a spice grinder with half of a vanilla pod.  That also went into the oven along with the salt, separated out on parchment paper, like Heidi did here.  I blended it again after it baked as the chunks needed to be broken up a bit.


This has been delicious mixed in with black tea.  The zest and bean pod are noticeable in the end result here, so if I wanted to avoid the larger parts in my tea, I could put it into the steeper with the leaves instead of mixing it into my individual cup.


I look forward to playing around with other spin-offs with the rest of my peels.  This post on Local Kitchen has a lot of ideas that are worth exploring. 

Have you used citrus salt or citrus sugar?  If so, I'd love it if you would share your favorite uses in the comments.  I could use some more ideas!

1 comment:

  1. Mouth watering project, thanks for sharing. I love that you used the whole fruit.

    As you now, salt and sugar are major enemies in our kitchen, but this makes me think about how we might get more from the salt and sugar that we use. OR how to find other ways to find this accent in plant oils and zests.

    ReplyDelete

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