Clementine Prosecco Sorbet with Candied Citrus Peel

A few days into the New Year, we’re still in the mood of welcoming a fresh beginning. What can be more festive than a dish of clementine Prosecco sorbet served up in a Champagne glass? The pure pleasure of fresh fruit juice and the bubbly Prosecco is palpable. We are clearing the deck for another exciting year of good eats.

I use five pounds of clementine to make the juice. There is a lot of squeezing by hand, since the small size of the clementine won’t fit into the standard citrus juicer. Yet, I have to add 1 orange into the mix to barely make 3 cups of juice the recipe calls for to make 1 quart of sorbet. See the big mountain of spent clementines. Instead of discarding all  of them, I save some to make some candied clementine peels. (See the recipe below for details.)

Making sorbet cannot be easier. However, easy doesn’t mean quick. I adapted David Lebovitz recipe from My Paris Kitchen using some alternate ingredients. Instead of tangerine and Champagne, clementine and Prosecco are used, in roughly a 3 to 1 ratio.

First make the fruit juice syrup, stirring together 1/2 cup of juice and sugar (2/3 cup or 140g), on the stovetop. Add in Prosecco (1 cup) and the rest of the freshly squeezed clementine juice (2 1/2 cups) off the heat. Chill it thoroughly. Churn the sorbet base in the ice cream maker.

Actually, the initial and often forgotten step is to freeze the ice cream bowl, which can take anywhere from 6 to 22 hours. I haven’t made ice cream for a while and had to dig out the ice cream machine and started to get familiar with it again.

Maybe I did not churn the sorbet long enough. The texture of the clementine Prosecco sorbet is more like ice than sorbet. Maybe that’s expected given there is no cream or milk in the sorbet base. The taste of Prosecco is front and center. The sorbet is light and the perfect embodiment of “good life.” I can imagine making this sparkling sorbet again on special occasions.

Happy New Year!

Served the clementine Prosecco sorbet with vanilla ice cream and clementine candied peel

Print Recipe

Candied Citrus Peel

Ingredients

• 4 grapefruit, or 6 oranges or 12 clementines, preferably organic and unwaxed
• 1 kg (5 cups) of sugar
• 500ml (2 1/4 cups) water
• 150g (3/4 cup) sugar, for tossing

Instructions

1

Wash the grapefruit, oranges or clementines. Cut them in half and juice them. Reserve the juice for drinking or using in another recipe.

2

Place the juiced citrus shells in a pan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and cook for 10 minutes. Drain, then return the peel to the pan and cover with fresh cold water. Bring to a boil again, then drain. Repeat this blanching process a total of five times for grapefruit, three times for oranges, and twice for clementines. After the final blanching, test the tenderness of the peel by piercing it with the tip of a knife. If it still seems a little tough, blanch it again.

3

Drain the peel and let it cool to the touch. With a spoon, scrape away the soft pith. Then slice into 5-mm (1/4-inch) strips.

4

Place the blanched and sliced peel, sugar and water into a clean pan and stir to dissolve the sugar. Once it has dissolved, stop stirring and bring the syrup to a boil. Boil for about an hour and a half, until the syrup reduces and small bubbles form on top. The peel will become slightly translucent.

5

Remove the peel from the syrup with a slotted spoon and lay out on a wire rack placed over a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet to catch the drips.

6

The next day, touch the peel to see if it is almost dry, but still tacky. It it is too moist, the sugar you toss it in will dissolve. But if it is too dry, the sugar will not adhere to the peel. When the peel is ready, toss in the sugar.

7

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 6 months.

Notes

Adapted from The Violet Bakery Cookbook by Claire Ptak