Citrus recipes: sharp practice

By Diana Henry Published: 10:05AM GMT twenty-six February 2010

Blood-orange baked sweat bread with spread and mascarpone filling; Orange and pistachio pilaf Photo: PETER CASSIDY

Sometimes when I cruise what to prepare at this time of year I begin with colour. Beetroot and pinkish rhubarb come up time and again, but the genuine valuables of the winter kitchen is citrus fruit, at the rise and abounding usually when we need it. I have a paper bag full of navel oranges on my table at the impulse and the really steer of them is keeping me going (the sky is grey again). British culinary birthright competence foreordain that jelly is the plate we majority mostly prepare with oranges but it doesnt meant we cant pillage alternative countries for ideas.

Orange and pistachio pilaf Diana Henry"s hold up in food Diana Henry"s shepherds baked sweat bread recipe Diana Henry: Skewered duck with pomegranates Blood-orange baked sweat bread with spread and mascarpone stuffing Coconut rice pudding with candied limes

The Middle East is a good place to start. The pilaf [see associated articles] is so splattered with colour it looks similar to a Jackson Pollock (where there are oranges, emerald pistachios and fistfuls of immature spices will roughly positively be lurking), and it uses usually the liking and juice. The strength is great, too: Iranians supplement segments to stews (both duck and lamb) towards the finish of in progress so that you still get bursts of extract as you eat.

Red-splattered red blood oranges have me even some-more excited. The deteriorate is short , and the extract can be roughly as flush as that of cranberries. Whatever you have with them will be eye-poppingly beautiful. Use in salads (pair with feta and saccharine almonds, or supplement slices to a ceviche done with blood-orange juice) or desserts.

The baked sweat bread [see associated articles] is perfect, as are jellies and sorbets. Their tart, honeyed essence goes well with rosemary and cardamom, so think about those as bedfellows.

I right away buy limes scarcely as mostly as lemons. It shows how majority Vietnam and Thailand have invaded my kitchen. Lime performs the same pretence as lemon: it pulls flavours together and, in meals where sweet, hot, tainted and green have to be balanced, is indispensable. I have stood and undetermined over how limes and lemons differ, sucking on a crowd of one afterwards the other. Lemon seems to be sourer, but orange has something else a greenness, a leafy, uninformed ambience that is utterly the own. Having pronounced that, you can conform majority of the lemon recipes in your repertoire by utilizing limes instead, with engaging results. It goes quite well with chocolate (try a dip of orange sorbet with chocolate tart; the similar to those good out-of-date orange and chocolate sherbets) and as you competence expect, since the countries where it grows coconut.

I whim one of those navels now. Think this is the deteriorate of lifeless skies and brownish-red food? Not if you see to citrus.