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Wednesday 11 January 2012

Candied orange peel

A favorite Cypriot and Mediterranean treat is candied orange peel which is easy to make for yourself.

If you can get your hands on five or six freshly picked oranges use them but if you can't buy organic oranges which have not been sprayed or wax  coated.

Firstly peel your oranges into strips about 2.5cm wide. Remove some of the pith but don't worry if you can't remove it all, as you will be able to remove more after the peels have been cooked.

Place the orange peels in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil for a few minutes, drain, to remove the bitter water, re-cover the peels with cold water and boil again for a few minutes.

After draining, allow the peelings to cool completely before removing most of the pith. Then return to the saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil for a few minutes, drain and allow to cool.

Make a syrup with two cups of sugar, one cup of water and one tablespoon of lemon juice. If you want to add some zing include some powdered ginger in your syrup. Bring the mixture to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes by which time it should thicken. Put the drained and cooled peels into the syrup and cook   for about 45 minutes until the peels crystallize.

Leave the peels to cool in the syrup overnight. Remove each peel from the syrup and allow most of the syrup to drip off before placing the peel on a wire rack to dry. Once dry, store in a pre-sterilsed plastic container in your freezer and defrost when needed to decorate desserts, for baking or to enjoy with yogurt.

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