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Candied Grapefruit and Orange Peel
Select choice fruit. Remove the peel in quarter sections and cut it into strips nearly half an inch wide. Weigh the peel and take its weight in sugar. Cover the peel with cold water, adding a tablespoonful of salt to three pints of water, and let stand over night. In the morning let simmer until the peel is very, very tender. It will take five or six hours.
The cooking must be very slow; the dish should be large in extent, that the peel may not be broken during the cooking. Set the kettle aside over night. Drain off the liquid. Cook the sugar and half its weight of water to a syrup; add the peel and let simmer very slowly until the syrup is thick (nearly all absorbed) and the peel comparatively clear; when partly cooled, pick out the pieces of peel, roll them (with a fork) in granulated sugar, and set them on waxed paper to dry. Store in closed glass receptacles.
If the peel becomes hard, simmer in a little hot syrup, a few pieces at a time, - until soft; then again roll in granulated sugar.
If more convenient, the peel need not be cut in shreds until after it has been cooked. Peel, candied for use in pies, puddings, etc., is left in quarter or half sections.
A straightforward candying method that asks for patience rather than skill. Two things in it are worth adjusting: the length of the simmer and the point at which you decide the syrup is done.
- The hinge: cook the peel fully tender before sugar touches itSugar sets the texture of citrus peel. Once it enters the syrup, peel that is still firm will stay leathery no matter how long you cook it.
- Five or six hours is far longer than neededFive or six hours is longer than most modern cooks will need -- The recipe insists the cooking be very slow. On a modern burner at a slow simmer, grapefruit peel is usually very tender in about 45 to 90 minutes, orange in 30 to 45. Test by pinching a strip: it should collapse with no resistance.
- The salt soak, and an alternativeA tablespoon of salt to three pints of water is a mild brine that draws out bitterness overnight. An alternative is to blanch the peel in three changes of fresh boiling water, which takes about twenty minutes and serves much the same purpose. Either works; do not skip both.
- Weight in sugar means equal weightsThe recipe weighs the peel at the outset and takes the same weight of sugar. Half that weight in water gives roughly a 2:1 sugar-to-water syrup by weight, which is correct for candying.
- Judging "syrup is thick"The recipe's own tests are that the syrup is nearly all absorbed and the peel comparatively clear. If you prefer a thermometer, a syrup in the region of 225 to 230F that clings in heavy threads is about right; undercooked peel tends to weep in storage, and a syrup taken much further will crystallize in the pan.
- Drying is the step people rushRolled peel needs 12 to 48 hours on waxed paper or a rack in a dry room before it stops being tacky. Humid weather can double that. It must be dry to the touch before it goes into jars or it will sweat and mold.
- Vessel"The dish should be large in extent" means a wide, shallow pan, not a deep pot; a 12-inch skillet or sauteuse lets the peel lie in a single layer and keeps it whole. Use stainless or enameled cast iron, not bare aluminum, with acidic fruit.
- Yield and keepingExpect the peel of a few grapefruit or half a dozen large oranges to give something in the region of a pound of candied strips. In a sealed jar in a cool cupboard it keeps several months; the hardening the recipe anticipates is a sign of drying out, not spoilage.
Candied citrus peel belongs to the older tradition of preserving in which sugar was the medium and thrift was the motive: the peel was the part of an expensive imported fruit that would otherwise have gone to the pig or the fire. Grapefruit's appearance alongside orange here is a marker of date. The fruit was barely known in American kitchens before the 1880s, when Florida groves began shipping it commercially, and by the 1910s it had become a fashionable breakfast item in hotels and better households, which meant a steady supply of thick, bitter rinds looking for a use. The closing note that peel for pies and puddings is left in quarter or half sections points at the other half of its working life, as a baking ingredient rather than a sweetmeat, standing in for the candied peel sold by confectioners at a price. The rescue instruction for hardened peel reflects a period when a batch of preserves represented real labor and was not lightly thrown out.