Oranges are appealing this time of year for a reason
Fruit contains potassium, vitamins, dietary fibre — and some sun in winter
A joy of winter is that supermarket produce sections come alive with a wide range of oranges, varieties that stretch beyond familiar Valencias.
Think of blood oranges, with their showy red-orange flesh. Or pink-tinted Cara Caras. Or small, juicy mandarins.
“When it’s cold outside, we have something nice and bright to look forward to,” said Lindsey Wolterstorff, produce manager of Valley Natural Foods in Burnsville, Minn. “We start to see stuff ramping up in December, and by January we’re in the heart of citrus season. It’ll wane out as spring comes in, when lots of little green vegetables can start to grow.”
The appearance of navel oranges (so named because the seedless variety, an ideal eating orange, sports a belly buttonlike knob) generally heralds the season’s arrival.
“Then it’s satsumas, and then clementines bring on another wave of excitement,” said Alex Christensen, assistant produce manager of the Seward Co-op’s Franklin Avenue store in Min- neapolis. “Once the blood oranges hit, people are all-citrus, all the time. And that’s great because it’s the time to do it.”
Kevin Hannigan, co-owner of the Produce Exchange in the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis, said that yearround availability can make oranges commonplace.
“But when you get great oranges in season, they’re like great peaches at the peak of ripeness. People get excited about them and we work hard to get the best.” What the pros buy Wolterstorff gravitates toward the Cara Cara.
“It’s everything you get in a navel, but they have an herbal, floral quality, and a much more complex flavour,” she said. “They’re orange on the outside, and a beautiful pink on the inside. They’ve got the look of grapefruit without the sour and bitter qualities that some people don’t like.”
Samuel Philpot is one of two produce buyers at Eastside Food Co-op in Minneapolis. He looks forward to the midseason arrival of the TDE mandarin. “They’re a relatively new variety, a mix of Temple, Dancy and Encore mandarins,” he said “They’re my favourite, by far. The first season that they came in, I was blown away. They have a really nice, tangy profile. They’re not just about sweetness — they have a well-rounded flavour.”
For Christensen, it’s all about the minneola tangelo, the fistsized, bell-shaped cross between a tangerine and a grapefruit. “They’re the juiciest citrus that we see all season,” he said. “They start out a little watery, but the flavour gets richer and richer as they go on, and they end really well.”
Hannigan’s tastes are more universal. “I love it when we get great navel oranges, and I’m a big fan of sweet-tart citrus, so I love the clementines and the minneolas,” he said. “It sounds silly, but I love them all.” Cooking with oranges Oranges are berries, the fruit of subtropical evergreen trees. The majority of cultivated oranges end up in juice.
If you rely on oranges just for their juice, consider dropping — temporarily, anyway — the ubiquitous Valencia, and replacing (or at least supplementing) it with a blood orange, a Cara Cara or another more colourful and flavourful seasonal fruit.
“The Valencia is the best juicing orange, it’s always going to give the greatest bang for your buck,” said Wolterstorff. “But you can use — or at least add in — hints of other types of oranges to give juices so much more complexity.”
But with oranges, there’s a great deal more than juice.
Eating oranges is physically restorative: An average-size orange contains 100 per cent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C, and also boasts vitamin A, potassium and dietary fibre. And their bright, refreshing bite is as spiritually energizing as a burst of sunlight on an overcast January day.
“In general, my personal suggestion is that, if you want to eat more citrus, then literally, eat more citrus,” said Christensen. “That’s the joy of produce. Just eat it fresh and whole.”
That said, oranges brighten just about any dish they touch, from salads to sauces, garnishes to desserts.
Oranges can be stored on the counter for a few days. Just don’t place them in a bowl with apples or bananas, since both emit ethylene gas, which accelerates the ripening process.
In terms of longevity, oranges will thrive in the refrigerator. Be sure to keep them out of plastic bags, which will draw moisture from the fruit and hasten their spoilage. Whatever you do, remember: The dead of winter is the time for maximum orange enjoyment.