At a time when food prices are rocketing, it has been a joy to me for the last two or three months to buy a huge bag of sweet juicy oranges, 24 in the last bag I counted, for only R8.99 in our supermarket (that’s about $1!). If we could live just on oranges we’d be laughing all the way to the bank!
So we’ve been having oranges segmented like grapefruit and eaten with a spoon for breakfast, then, when that palled, we squeezed the juice and drank it. The best of all has been this orange sorbet recipe, which takes all the goodness and flavour of fresh oranges and stores it in the freezer until it intensifies into a dessert that completely satisfies your taste-buds and which is at its very best with some dark chocolate. I made two huge ice-cream containers full earlier in the season. Unfortunately it went down so well with everyone that they have both all but vanished. My sister-in-law was so horrified at the thought of there being none left for Christmas lunch, that I scooped an extra sack of oranges into my shopping trolley yesterday, to make another big container full; this one labeled with a “Not to be opened before 25th December notice”.
20 smallish oranges
juice of half a lemon
100ml/ ½ cup water
icing sugar (if needed to sweeten)
Syrup
250ml/ 1 cup sugar
150 ml/ 2/3 cup water
juice of ¼ lemon
Make the syrup by heating the syrup ingredients over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved and it looks clear. Boil for 2-3 minutes, then leave to cool, while you prepare the rest.
Wash half the oranges well, then grate their zest finely. Squeeze the juice from all of the oranges and the half lemon. Mix in the water and cooled syrup and taste to see if any more sugar is needed. Add water, lemon juice or sugar until you get the right intensity and sweetness, remembering that frozen desserts need a little extra sweetness to bring out the flavour. Freeze until firm.
The sorbet keeps well and is even better a week after making. Hide it at the back of the freezer if you want it to last till Christmas!
Thank you for this recipe. I can't wait to try it! We LOVE fruit in this house so it will be a hit.
ReplyDeleteOh that sounds wonderful! Probably not really suitable for Christmas here in England, but certainly suitable for a summer braai! Love the idea of making it with naartjies...
ReplyDeleteyummy! I'm definitely going to make this :)
ReplyDelete