An Ode to Charred Citrus
One of the best things in the world is the acid that citrus fruit brings to dishes. We didn’t even realize you could eat the skin of citrus without it being a travesty until Aran Goyoga hosted us for a private workshop to deepen our relationship to the art of food photography. And lo! When charred correctly (with a thin enough pith) it isn’t just edible, it is deliciously so. Obviously we knew about the perfection of citrus zest, which is the freaking peel of a citrus. But still…we thought charred citrus was beyond our capacity to perfect.
Since then, the love affair with charred citrus has grown. The reason we didn't discover it earlier on is still baffling to me. We roast everything so why not citrus? While citrus was certainly used over the years in our kitchen, it clearly wasn’t being used to its full potential. We had it around, but dumping a dollar or two worth of citrus into a dish or dressing didn't make sense that often, unless it was a need. And slicing one up to potential burn it? Absolutely not.
Saying that now, seems silly. But…It wasn’t grown locally where I lived, and I was 22 and foolhardy. And believed that ‘local food was the only food’ we should eat. NYC is known for many things, citrus not being one of them. At that time, nearly 90% of my food came from a singular CSA share that was schlepped from Prospect Park to my apartment, two train stops and a 15 minute walk away. I paid less than $300 for a full share of weekly produce. Which gave me over 10-30 pounds of produce a week, over 12 weeks.
I hadn’t grown up cooking. As I’ve said before, my mother cooks. And well at that. But my life was spent in extracurriculars and running around with friends. I didn’t just sit home and watch cooking. On TV or otherwise. So a CSA, from an east coast organic farm felt exotic to my food knowledge. It also meant I had to cook a lot of food.
I’d come home, having received a workout and a bag of produce (who needs a gym when you’re carting 20+ pounds of produce up and down subway stairs) full of things I didn’t recognize at all. Each week, I received a mystery stash and a one page newsletter that told me about what was in the bag and sometimes how I could use them. Curly cued flowers with stems (Garlic scapes). Bumpy purple, hard veggies that tasted somewhere between broccoli and cabbage (Kohlrabi). Sometimes, they would have substituted something on the ‘holy grail one pager that answered all my questions’ with something else, and I was forced to knock on my neighbors door proclaiming wtf is this. (She was an herbalist, and taught me how to forage for wild onions/ramps in Prospect Park. Which may or may not have been legal, but I believe the statute of limitations on a questionably legal ramp harvest has passed.)
I would pickle strange veggies and stack them in my fridge, 3 jars high. I’d bake bread, standing on a chair in my kitchen, as my main counter space wouldn't fit a KitchenAid mixer, so she lived on top of my fridge. (I saved three weeks of internship wages to buy it, and lived on ramen and my CSA for those three weeks) I would can summer tomatoes, and stack them under my queen mattress. I felt like I was a character in Little House of the Prairie, except I listened to traffic on Flatbush Ave. 24/7.
During this time in my life, citrus was a luxury. Less so for cost—I had finally found a roommate to share my studio—but more so because of my obsessions with local food. If it didn’t come from my CSA or the Greenmarket, it was basically a ‘no’ from me to cook with it.
This is no longer my dogmatic perspective. Yes, local. Also, yes to delicious and yes to citrus.
So I’ve teased you with some ways to use charred citrus. But let’s talk why charred citrus. There are four main reasons:
It deepens the sweetness, and concentrates the acid which mellows it overall.
Roasting obliterates most of the bitterness from the pith, which means you get layered flavor from the peel, pith, and the fruit. (A big part of what we teach at the Courageous Cooking School is about layering flavors for deeper deliciousness)
Use more of the fruit! It’s a win-win-win!
Because…It’s pretty. I mean. LOOK at the colors!!!!!!
Looking for ways to incorporate charred citrus into your meal plan? Let’s talk!
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