Mandarinquats

[minoanmiss]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarinquat

They're almost perfect.

I have an unfortunate predilection for expensive food. One nice thing about expensive ingredients is that they tend to be less expensive than expensive other things. Expensive fruit can be $25 with shipping, but how much do expensive shoes cost? So. (This rubric does not apply to restaraunts. For inexpensive luxury one must put in the work oneself.)

Mandarinquats have the best of their parents. Sweet edible skin like kumquats (I love the texture of citrus skin -- toothsome, *slightly* leathery, with tiny explosions of essential-oil-containing glands) and sweet juicy intensely flavored insides like mandarins. I would just really like seedless ones -- those would be perfect to candy.

I should do more research on candying mandarinquats, actually. They are so juicy they have tended to collapse when I made suckets of them. Maybe I should start with wet sugar rather than syrup... I have five left from the most recent package. I am trying to decide between alcohol extraction and experimental candying. Hmm.

Comments

[sabotabby]

I have never heard of those but they sound amazing.

[minoanmiss]

They are really lovely. I hope you get to try them!

[magid]

I’d start with plain, unwet sugar, and let it macerate, pulling enough liquid out of the fruit to be the candying liquid.

[minoanmiss]

takes notes do you think I should cut them open or leave them whole?

[magid]

My guess would be to halve them, to let the sugar pull out as much liquid as possible, but really, it’s just a guess, based on having made a lot of Shaker lemon pies, in addition to various types of jam.

[minoanmiss]

So I decided to put them in alcohol but this is a good idea for the next batch!

[magid]

Also an excellent preservation method!

Did you keep them whole?

(Just in case it’s useful: you can make a delicious $Fruit liqueur by letting the cut fruit sit in vodka (sometimes rum or gin are better pairings) for a week, draining the infused booze, then macerating the boozy fruit in sugar for a week. Drain again after the second week, mix the two liquids (week 1 and week 2) together, and it’s delicious. Plus a by-product of boozy fruit, which I’m sure you have a zillion uses for.)

[minoanmiss]

Speaking of shaker lemon pies I love your comment about eating the filling by itself. I wonder what it would be good to put on besides in a pie. Maybe on cake and/or cream?

[magid]

Well, I eat the macerlated thinly-slice lemons with the sugar/juice; once eggs are added, into the pie crust it goes!

I’d happily eat them in other uses, but it’s worth noting that the sugar doesn’t completely dissolve, so you’d have to think about either straining, or want something with a crunchy background texture.
The lemon sliver-slices are sweeter than lemon while retaining their essential nature, the liquid is essence-of-lemonade, and the sugar, well, (wet) lemon sugar is delicious (but not excellent for me to consume frequently, alas).

[minoanmiss]

I think making a parfait of the lemon filling, cwhipped cream cheese, and tender cake would be nifty. makes a note (obviously without the raw eggs)

[elainegrey]

Have you heard of Shaker Lemon pie? Sliced lemons - with peel and pith (are macerated in sugar for about 24 hours and then are included in a custard pie filling. The sugar pulls out lots of liquid. Of course, sugar really pulls out liquid: i was surprised how much came out of hard as rock green peaches when i made a variation on Korean Green Plum Syrup (Maesil Cheong).

I think it's simply how much time you have to let the maceration take place. Slicing in half would definitely complete fairly quickly, and you could pull out seeds.

The Nippon Orangequat is on my list of things i would like to buy and grow from http://mckenzie-farms.com/photo.htm

[magid]

Shaker lemon pie is amazeballs! I don’t let myself make it much, because then I will eat far too much pie (for some reason, this one is the one I find hard to share).

(Also, I’ve been known to do the lemon macerating step, and then just eat the lemons and sweet….)(I adore lemons.)

[darkmarcy]

Tiny things! If i had a Barbie house I'd put one mandarinquat in the kitchen and pretend it's a pomelo! (Albeit the colour is wrong)

[minoanmiss]

Ahahaha it would be so perfect. Right next to a Brussels Sprout Cabbage. (I also have a pomelo in the house, cut up with fennel and ginger)

[dhampyresa]

Given thet clémentines are thus named after the guy who made them because mandarins had too many seeds in them, I for one welcome our new minoanquat overlords.

[minoanmiss]

blushes