Orange banquet: what you can cook with tangerine
The homeland of the mandarin is South China, where these ancient citrus plants began to be cultivated as early as the second millennium BC. They began to be imported to Russia from Europe at the end of the 19th century, and for a long time they were considered a delicacy. And in 1963 Moroccan mandarins with a black rhombic sticker appeared in the USSR, and since then the inhabitants of our country have firmly associated this exotic product with New Year holidays. Today, these fruits can often be found as an ingredient in various restaurant dishes. With the help of masters of haute cuisine, Izvestia gathered a full-fledged dinner, where mandarins are necessarily present in each treat.
What appetizers can be prepared with tangerine
In recent years, appetizers with raw fish and seafood have become very popular among Russians. An important role here is played by sweet and sour sauces, which often include juice and even segments of fragrant citrus fruits. Mandarin in this combination is also responsible for the "New Year" notes of the dish.
Tangerine scallop
- The simplest and quickest treat can be built around a tasty sea scallop, adding tangerine to it and dressing made of the same, - Grigory Chunikhin, brand-chef of Rebecca bistro, told Izvestia. - In such a combination citrus with its acidity and sweetness will well emphasize the native taste of seafood. It does not matter what kind of fruit, the main thing is that the juicy and bright tangerine flavor is revealed in it.
According to Nikolay Grachev, the owner of the pan-Asian restaurant Chow Chow, tangerines are good to add to salads with seafood, for example with shrimp, mixed green leaves and soy-yogurt dressing. For such appetizers it is better to choose Abkhazian mandarins, as they are the freshest, since their transportation to the stores is the fastest. They may not be as sweet as Moroccan ones, but for light snacks it is more important to maximize juiciness of the fruit recently plucked from the branch.
Salmon tataki with mandarin ponzu
Our interlocutor also added that "New Year's" flavor can be added to snacks with the help of a popular Japanese sauce ponzu, consisting of soy sauce, vinegar and yuzu juice - a fragrant hybrid of tangerine and ichan lemon. If you prepare this sauce yourself, you can use tangerine juice in it, and this variant will be close to the classic one, but even more understandable and pleasant to Russian consumers. It is with such slightly adapted to our taste ponzu with mandarin juice in Chow Chow restaurant we serve salmon tataki (slightly fried outside and raw inside) with daikon and sweet pepper shavings.
What hot dishes tangerine is good for
Mandarin in hot dishes is less common and is usually used when you want to add a more intense citrus flavor. The juice of the fruit is excellent for meat dishes as a marinade or sauce. This product goes especially well with game.
- Mandarin brings a special sweetness and freshness to all dishes and is used almost entirely in the kitchen," said Jonathan Curtis, brand chef and creator of Aquatica restaurant. - It will go anywhere oranges are usually added, but the tangerine flavor will be more pronounced. In terms of spiciness, I would compare it to kumquat.
Duck stuffed with walnuts in tangerine glaze
According to our expert, tangerine and its zest make an interesting sweet and sour jam. It will have the right proportion of bitterness and flavor, and will be suitable as an additional garnish to any meat. Also such a jam would go well with a soft blue mold cheese.
As a typical example of using mandarins in hot dishes, we can mention roast duck, which is quite often cooked with this citrus fruit.
- Roast duck is quite a heavy dish, and tangerine contains organic acids that reduce the fat content of the meat," explained Tufan Maharramov, founder and brand chef of the Tusa Kavkaz corner at the Central Market. - The fruit helps to create the right balance of flavor in our duck stuffed with walnuts. In addition, we additionally cover the bird with tangerine glaze, and this further refers us to the New Year holidays.
New Year's shawarma with tangerines
Duck meat can also be combined with tangerines in rolls, as it is done by the chef of "Torpedo" cafe Sergey Sildiryan. For this purpose he uses fruits from Morocco, as they are sweeter, with a little sourness and they have fewer seeds. Citrus fruits give the treat freshness and lightness and delicately shade the sugary duck meat.
What desserts are prepared with mandarin
Most often tangerines are found in desserts, where they are used both in baked goods and in actual and fashionable sweets.
- To enhance the taste and aroma of tangerines, various spices are added to desserts, such as mint, cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, thyme," listed the chef of Technikum restaurants Danila Suslov. - Homemade spicy slices with a slight tartness of marzipan became the main highlight in our cheesecake "San Sebastian", and the wonderful aroma of citrus fruits harmoniously combined with the creamy taste of cottage cheese cream.
Classic San Sebastian cheesecake with mandarins
According to Kirill Abakshev, pastry chef at Pinch, Leveldva Izakaya, Ugolëk and Fullmoon restaurants, tangerines go well with cream, as well as white and milk chocolate. These products balance the acidity of the citrus fruit well, while not overpowering its natural flavor. Also with tangerines in sweets can be successfully combined with other fruits of yellow and orange colors.
- At Ugolëk we use Unshiu mandarins because they are big and sweet," continues our interviewee. - The flesh of the fruit is very fleshy and the color of the zest is bright orange. We also use them as a dessert mold, having previously scorched the outside to beautiful black flecks. Inside we place citrus ice cream made from mascarpone cream and tonka bean with gingerbread crumble and confit of baked mandarins, which we pre-cook in sous vide with spices and allspice.
Tangerine tiramisu with ginger gingerbread
Brand-chef Curtis is sure that tangerines are perfect for making trayfle dessert (in which segments of jelly, biscuit and fruit are mixed with syrup or cream), as well as for Pavlova and tiramisu, which at his restaurant is made with sabayon cookies and citrus slices in cream. When making sorbet from tangerine juice, he recommends adding a small amount of grated zest to enhance the flavor.
- I prefer to use small bright orange tangerines, which are sold directly with leaves, - our expert admits. - They have more flavor and more sweetness, and when you bring them from the market to the kitchen, the whole room immediately fills with a fragrant aroma.
