These crisp, jammy fritters taste like sunny California

Kumquats add a citrusy kick that goes beyond a cocktail garnish

As a native Californian and ex-chef, it’s easy for me to think of kumquats as a normal, everyday citrus like, say, a navel orange. I recognize that’s sort of a privileged view, but not because kumquats are spendy — truly, $5 worth of kumquats can last me a couple weeks if I use them as an accent ingredient.

For such a tiny fruit, their ellipsoid bodies pack a big punch. Halved kumquats can be a delicious tangy-sweet bite to accompany a creamy-salty cheese on a cheese platter, and you don’t need a lot of them to get their essence. Mature kumquat trees can produce a huge amount of fruit. So much so that my friend’s mom sends all of her son’s friends multiple 5-pound packages a year from Southern California because she’s the sweetest, and also because when she planted the now 14-foot tree she had no idea how bountiful it’d be.

So, what if you wanted to cook with kumquats in a big way? What if they had a destiny beyond your cocktail garnish? Those are questions I’ve avoided because the last time I wrote a recipe with kumquats in a big-ish way, I was labeled as an elitist in the comments section. It was during the height of the pandemic in 2020, and a pantry meal was objectively easier and safer, but really? Elitist for being a citrus nerd?

Kumquats can be turned into a big batch of jam or preserved in salt like you would lemons to add a little fruity funk and tang to stews and dressings. For something more immediate, they can be quartered, tossed in olive oil and roasted until caramelized for the main ingredient in a citrusy salsa.

Perhaps my new favorite way to use up a bunch of kumquats is this weekend treat: I toss them in a mixture of rice flour and allpurpose flour, lightly spiced with cinnamon and thinned out with sparkling water. I also fold in chopped bananas before I fry them until golden brown and crisp. Then I toss them in a musky lime zest sugar.

The raw kumquat softens and their mandarin orange flavor perfumes the fritter while the banana becomes jammy. The married flavors feel semitropical, but at the same time very Californian. They’re delicious and decidedly less precious than that cocktail garnish at your favorite restaurant.

Christian Reynoso/Special to The Chronicle Crispy, freshly fried Kumquat Banana Fritters marries semitropical flavors.