Oranges: a fermented chipotle salsa; a sour pickle with fenugreek and mustard; a scrap vinegar beauty cure; and dried orange peels for many uses…
The cold and the dark and sometimes a feeling of being defeated and overwhelmed, that can be what deep winter is like for me.
Then, before you know it, beautiful globes in all shades of orange announce themselves on shop shelves, and it’s time to think “What do you want to do this year with oranges, Annie?”
Well, I love marmalade, but I don’t want to be eating the buttered toast I also love with that marmalade, so better not go there. (Last year I made these lovely orange-and-vegetable marmalades.) And I’d just read this enticing Sybil Kapoor Chilli Marmalade recipe.
I remembered making Sybil Kapoor’s Orange Chilli Vodka Cake, a marvellous. rock-a-birthday-party contribution, sticky and spicy and surprising– one of life’s great cakes, truly.
So with all the recent fermenting of chilli sauces, the harissa, the salsa, the red and yellow and green sauces, I thought– let myself be inspired by this Ms. Sybil Kapoor and make…
Fermented Orange Chilli Salsa
- 4 organic oranges, juiced
- zest of 1/2 an orange, grated
- one fresh red chilli
- two dried chillis
- 0ne yellow 0r red capsicum pepper f0r body
- 2 dried chipotle (wanted the smoky thing happening)
- a handful of fennel seeds
- one tablespoon sea salt
- 7 Seville Oranges, which are so apparently an old variety, the way the pips stay tucked and hidden in the flesh, a quality modern breeders would be seeking to breed out…
- extra oranges and lemons for juice as needed
- 7 1/2 teaspoons sea salt (one for each orange and “one for the pot”) — as per Preserved Lemons
- a tablespoon of fenugreek seeds, ground up
- a tablespoon of mustard seeds
Juice and pulp the Sevilles as much as possible, removing seeds (which are great for pectin if you need more for your preserves). Slither the rinds. Mix with salt and spices (chilli would be great too but I’m exhibiting an occasional reserve!).
Press down your mixture as tightly as possible in an appropriate size jar. Cover with the juice, adding extra as needed, and weighting down your solid matter so it is not exposed to air. Check that the fruit remains under the juicy salty brine. (The pectin in the seeds and rind creates a gelatinous gel after the first few days; I add additional juice to keep the preserve moist in this stage.)
Let it sit. After a week you can really feel the changes happening. Keep it somewhere cool. Once it has properly fermented and soured, you can add a little oil to give it the feel on an Indian Pickle, like Lime Pickle… Last time I used Grapeseed Oil. This time, maybe I’ll just use Olive Oil, though a friend suggested Avocado Oil, if I could find it anywhere nearby… This preserve lasted for two years, only getting better with time.
This pickle is delicious with South Asian food, curries (sorry, Odd Pantry!), with cheese and greasy meaty things if you eat them– any where you’d use a chutney or pickle. Peanut Butter? Hummous? That kind of thing. No, I’m not pregnant.
And what to do with the bits that remain?
As a compulsive scrap vinegar maker, how could I not attempt something with the membranes and odd bits of these precious Sevilles? Put ’em in a jar with a little sugar or honey, and cover with water. Stir to integrate air (vinegar bacteria loving air, vs lactic-acid ones)… A week on, I’ve got something bitter and sour and citrusy, reminiscent of that grapefruit seed gel one is (well, was) prescribed for Candida. The fermenting pulp strikes me as a great source of Alpha-Hydroxy beauty mask, and indeed, I put some on my skin and it looks rejuvenated (not kidding). A friend tells me though it’s important to wash it thoroughly off as citrus can make one’s skin photo-sensitive. I’m wondering if my daughter would like the vinegar, once I’ve strained it after a proper (3 weeks?) waiting, as a kind of adolescent-skin clarifying preparation, on a cotton wad removing the day’s detritus. My poor children/ my lucky children– that’s up for grabs. And if it all goes wrong I’m confident I’ll at least have some amazing DIY cleaning agent for greasy pans or acrid clogged drains….
I was also really inspired by Zero Waste Chef drying orange peel for her homemade Chai blend, though I may try drying and grinding and see if I get a powder that might be useful somehow… in a custard? in a spice blend? We’ll see.
All exciting stuff! You’ve been busy, haven’t you? Love your piece on About.com too.
Lucky children, I say! This all looks fantastic. I have preserved lemons only and would like to try the salsa and scrap vinegar.
I have a question about your jar. My neighbor recently gave me half a dozen flip-top jars like yours holding the salsa (I can’t believe she didn’t want them!) and they no longer have their rubber gaskets. I thought about buying some new ones but from the looks of your picture, I may not need to. What do you think?
Another question: I submerged some fresh citrus peels into finished scrap vinegar in order to brew a household cleaner. (That’s one of my next posts–it’s that time of year.) Do you think I should instead make the scrap vinegar out of oranges like you have? I’m wondering if the two would differ much. I guess I could try both ways but I need to write something asap 😉
I now have a large jar of dried orange peels and hope to grind some up too–for sprinkling on oatmeal, over yogurt, into muffins, that sort of thing.
Thanks for the mention 🙂
Hell0– scuze my 0’s — I like the idea 0f y0ur trying b0th kinds 0f vinegar– they will be different, which will be interesting… Re the flip-t0p jars and rubber gaskets: I d0n’t kn0w. I d0n’t use them f0r pr0per preserving 0r require air tight storage– these are temp0rary f0r me until I decant…. Yesterday s0mewhere– I kn0w, Garden Betty!– I read ab0ut citrus salts– that seems an0ther fun idea— take care Ms Zer0 Waste! x
Ah, okay, thanks for letting me know about the jars. I used a large one yesterday to culture buttermilk. I have another one storing, of course, dried citrus peels. Neither of those really needs to be sealed. So I’ll use them for things like that. Ooooh, citrus salts! I will look that up. I never thought I would find so much joy in hoarding citrus peels. I just recently discovered their usefulness. Thanks for all of this Annie. You take care too 😀
[…] I wonder if you have noticed this too. Sprinkled on cakes and infused in creams and mixed with dried orange peel in harissa in all sorts of spicy North African-inspired […]
Wondering about the dried orange and tangerine peel left soaked in vodka for two years now…what might it be useful for…I have only opened one of the jars twice, others have remained sealed.
Your thoughts will be useful…do not wish for anything to explode. They have been wrapped in a dark drawer throughout…
H0w interesting! I d0n’t kn0w, is my answer! Will be interested t0 kn0w what y0u c0me up with. 🙂
[…] I wanted to make citrus scrap vinegar this winter but didn’t get around to it. Fortunately Annie at the wonderful blog Kitchen Counter Culture did—a homemade citrus scrap vinegar beauty potion. […]
This is definitely one to try, I love those sour South Asian pickles. Tried a blood orange & chilli jam which includes thinly sliced oranges peel included, it’s pretty good but your your pickle will be good when not needing the sweetness of jam. So much of interest to absorb on your blog.
Thank you! And on yours! The problem with the orange pickle, I discovered, was that even though it is delicious (and was a good condiment) it was never what I wanted quite as much as a lemon or a lime pickle, or… to tell the truth… orange marmalade, which is my downfall, simply because I love it so much with toast, bread of which is bad bad bad in my digestive system. Anyway–nice to meet you on WordPress and beyond!
Hi Annie, thanks for your wonderful blog! I have one question on the orange vinegar/ferment: Have you done something with it? Mine has turned out beautifully (the colour is a soft “rose powder” :). it smells alright, but not like sth I would put on my salad. Have you cleaned with it? Do you dilute yours? What about the skin tonic? Many thanks, Margarita (all the way from Germany!)
Hi Margarita– I use it the way I use vinegar in cleaning– to kind of freshen up something when it feels a little greasy or smelly. Lately I’ve been throwing citrus peels in kombucha vinegar and just using, topping up, using topping up, until it feels time to start again. Thanks for your comment.