Jim brought home a small box of clementines the other day
and ugh the puckering they caused, but in the end they inspired this simple,
but elegant dessert. If you don’t have clementines, chopped navel oranges with seeds
removed will be fine. However use fresh; the canned mandarins are overly soft
and tasteless. I flavoured the syrup with Grand Marnier, but I suspect any type
of orange liquor or rum would do them up nicely.
CLEMENTINES IN GRAND MARNIER
6 clementines
1-1/2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Grand Marnier or orange brandy
- Cut off the rinds of the oranges, removing the white pith.
- Break the clementines into segments and set aside for use later.
- Place the water in a small saucepan.
- Add the orange rinds to the pot.
- Add the sugar.
- Place the saucepan on the stove and bring it to boil.
- Keep simmering until syrup is reduced by half.
- Remove from the heat.
- Hold a smaller sieve over the pot and with a slotted spoon scoop the rinds into the sieve.
- Squeeze the rinds to force the syrup back into the pan.
- Discard rinds.
- Add the clementine segments to the hot syrup and place a lid on the pot.
- Immediately remove pot from heat.
- Let it cool to lukewarm and pour the brandy on the top.
- Don’t add the brandy until you are satisfied with the level of sweetness. If not sweet enough, scoop out the clementines and add a little more sugar to the pot. Reheat the syrup to melt the sugar and then cool it down before you put back the clementines. After the brandy added, the syrup should not be heated again.
- Serve in glasses or spooned over vanilla ice cream.
