For someone who is not fond of the colour orange, there is an awful lot of it in my kitchen at the moment: chubby little navels, heavy with juice; tiny blood oranges with ruby and tangerine flesh; knobbly Sevilles, the fruit for marmalade and Caneton à la orange. There are pink grapefruit and the classic white-fleshed I prefer with its kick of sparkling citrus, and some rounded Bergamot lemons whose fragrance has a mysterious spicy edge to it.
I squeeze the occasional orange, mostly one of the blood variety, and swig its juice on a Sunday morning (try half orange, half pomegranate fora real wake-up call), but most citrus fruits in my kitchen end up grated, sliced, stuffed inside a roast duck or a chicken hotpot, simmered into marmalade or peeled and sliced and served in salad. Few are ever eaten as they come, or sliced in halfand turned inside out the way my brother used to eat them. Ivaluethe fruit for its sharpness, that smack of acidity that it gives, and find its peel useful in lamb stews where it gives ahint of Provence ifyou include rosemary, red wine andgarlic, too.
Orange juice squeezed from the fruit can be thin and metallic or sweet-sharp and vibrant, depending on your oranges. Right now there aresome very good fruits around, and Ihave used them this week in asort of upside-down tart, where thejuice soaked delightfully through the pastry, and a main course involving cooking pieces of duck with slices of both orange and lemon to which Iintroduced a bit of seasonal warmth with preserved ginger.
I usedboth legs and breasts of the duck, but rather than cook them as they were, I marinated them with a salt and ginger syrup before adding them to the pot. Thatway they stayed incredibly juicy and succulent, not something you can always say about this particular meat.
My bracingly bitter Seville oranges will no doubt end up in alate batch of marmalade, a thick one I hope, tomake up for last year's rather runny effort. I have started slicing theoranges already.
Duck with ginger and citrus
I have suggested eating this with rice, and in particular nutty brown basmati, but brown lentils could be suitable, too. Depending on what is to follow, I would accompany this with some steamed greens, such as bok choy, choi sum or maybe even sprouting broccoli. Awatercress salad would be good, too.
Serves 2
duck legs 2
duck breasts 2
preserved ginger in syrup 6 small knobs
syrup from the ginger jar 6 tbsp
warm water 3 tbsp
sea salt flakes 1 tsp
orange 1
lemon 1
caster sugar a little, optional
steamed brown rice enough for 2
Make four or five slashes, about the width of a finger apart, through the skin of the duck on both breasts and legs. Put them in a plastic bag with 4 tbsp of the ginger syrup, 3 of warm water and 1 tsp of sea salt flakes. Seal the bag, then set aside in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Put a heavy-based pan over a moderate to high heat, place the duck skin-side down (no oil or extra fat is required) and brown lightly, turn and cook the other side. Tip off any excess fat from the pan (you need to leave a little in the pan). Thinly slice the orange and lemon then add them to the pan together with the marinade from the duck. Adjust the heat so the liquid simmers gently, season with pepper and cover with a lid.
Leave the duck to simmer for 20 minutes, keeping the heat low and checking to make sure the fruit is not sticking to the pan. Pour in the remaining ginger syrup, then knobs of preserved ginger. Check the pan juices – they should be nicely sweet, sharp and slightly spicy from the ginger. Adjust them to taste with salt, and, if you wish, a little sugar or orange juice.
Serve the duck, thinly sliced fruits and the cooking juices with the steamed rice.
Blood orange tarts
I wouldn't normally consider anything as juicy as oranges for an upside-down tart, as the copious amount of juice in the fruit will make the pastry wet. Yet that is exactly what happens with blood oranges and we all found the effect rather delicious. Vanilla ice cream is a suitable accompaniment.
Makes 6
blood oranges 4-5, small to medium
puff pastry 175g
butter 50g
golden caster 100g
You will need 6 small baking tins, about 9cm in diameter, 3-4cm in height
Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. On afloured board, roll the pastry out 5mm thick. Using a pastry cutter or a saucer as a template, cut 6 rounds of pastry and set them aside. They should be slightly larger than the top of your baking tins.
Remove the peel from the oranges and trim away the pith. Break into segments, but avoid the temptation to remove the skin from the segments. Put the butter and sugar in a small pan and place over a moderate to high heat. With minimal stirring, let the butter and sugar boil to arich caramel. Take care the mixture doesn't burn. At the end, it can be stirred to produce an even caramel. Divide it between the 6 tins and set aside on a baking sheet.
Divide the orange segments between the baking tins – each will need 5 or 6, closely packed – then place a disc of pastry on top of each. Push the edges of the pastry down around the fruits with a wooden spoon, remembering how hot the caramel is. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry has risen. It will have shrunk slightly. Remove from the oven and leave to settle for a good 5-10 minutes before turning out. Using aknife, smash any hard caramel on the base of the baking dishes and scatter it over the tarts. It will be a crisp contrast to the syrup-soaked pastry.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or visit guardian.co.uk/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place
