Mandarin Orange Dust
I am a sucker for anything gourmet. Unusual ingredients are a particular weakness (see bamboo rice.)
It all started with a tweet from a Seattle chef I admire and follow on Twitter, @ChefReinvented (Becky Selengut). She was catering a party for 60 and tweeted her menu, including this little gem:
Seared wild U.S. prawns with tangerine dust, New Mexico chiles and smoked paprika aioli.
Tangerine dust? All of a sudden, I’m fixated on getting my hands on some tangerine dust.
A quick glance around the kitchen and I spot a 5-pound box of Cuties®. So they’re not tangerines, but I thought, why not?
For the record, tangerine is much sexier sounding than cutie.
The Cutie is a type of mandarin orange — a Californian clementine — as is the tangerine, the satsuma and the Dancy.
Cutie Dust just doesn’t have the same ring as Clementine Dust. Or Tangerine Dust for that matter.
The clementines need to be sliced whisper-thin, but after a few, painfully slow slices with my knife, I quickly figured out I had better things to do with my Sunday. I dug out the mandolin.
Technically it’s a Japanese Benriner, (affiliate link) the only one I’ve found (sorry France and Germany) that slices food so thin you can see through it.
Adjusting the mandolin to cut as thin as possible, each clementine produced 10 or 12 slices, not counting the first couple of slices or the last little bit, as I stopped before I sliced my finger tips off.
Funny thing, this particular mandolin has the words “watch your fingers” printed in English and Japanese.
I’m guessing that the Japanese words say the same thing. They could say something entirely different, like “we only printed the English words ‘watch your fingers’ for the careless English-speaking people, but we know you, our slice-savvy Japanese customers, know when to stop.”
Or something like that.
I laid the slices in a single layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet and stuck them in a 200ºF. oven for about 3 hours.
If you don’t slice them as thin as I did, it might take a little longer. They should be brittle when they come out of the oven, but don’t let them get too brown or they’ll taste burnt.
At this point, they make a nice little potpourri garnish. Throw in a couple cinnamon sticks and call it a day.
But I was after the culinary profit of dust, so I crushed a handful and put them in a spice blender with a big pinch of sugar and small pinch of kosher salt.
Chef Becky had warned me that they might be bitter without cutting with a little something. This is especially true if using thicker skinned tangerines instead of thin-skinned clementines.
Several grinds later, a pretty powder: clementine dust.
It looks like ground ginger, only brighter. The taste? Intense. Like an orange to the 10th degree. Exquisite.
Four clementines yielded 1/4 cup of powder, er, dust.
I’m thinking about making some more, stashing them into little spice tins to give to friends for Christmas and Hanukkah.
Dusting scallops with this angelic powder just before searing sounds like a fabulous idea. So does mixing it into a dry rub for ribs or maybe adding a teaspoon to a vinaigrette to punch up the flavor.
What do you think about adding a teaspoon or two to a pound cake or muffin batter? Or maybe sprinkling on top of ice cream, or folding a teaspoon into whipped cream?
The possibilities are endless…and flavorful and fragrant.
PrintMandarin Orange Dust
This incredibly easy, fantastically fragrant “dust” is wonderful sprinkled on white fish, scallops and shrimp. It also make a nice garnish for vanilla-frosted cupcakes. Make extra to give as gifts. But be warned… the potency only lasts a week or so. Plan to use it within a few days of making it.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 3 hours
- Total Time: 3 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 1/4 cup dust
Ingredients
4 mandarin (clementine, Cuties) oranges
1 teaspoon sugar
Pinch of sea salt
Instructions
Heat the oven to 200 degrees F. Line a couple baking sheets with parchment and set aside.
Wash and dry the mandarins. Slice as thin as possible on a mandolin. Each mandarin should yield 10 to 12 slices.
Place on lined baking sheets and bake until dry and fairly brittle but not browned, about 3 hours.
Let cool. Working in batches, crumble a handful into a spice grinder. Add a big pinch of sugar and a small pinch of salt. Grind into a powder. Repeat with remaining dried mandarin rings.
Keywords: mandarin dust, clementine dust, orange powder
awesome Gwen! I have only ground the dehydrated peels (no pith) I just love how you ground up the entire dehydrated fruit. I wonder how the taste compares. Will have to try that myself. Beautiful photos.
Becky
Love it! Tis the season for Cuties here in CA and I always have a bag of them around.
“Cutie Dust” sounds suspiciously close to Pixie Dust, which I kinda like. But I have to agree, “Clemintine Dust” sounds so much more respectable.
The Benriner Mandoline is an awesome (and yes, dangerous) tool. I have one and I use it all the time.
The color you got from the powder was incredible. I’d love to see it as a garnish on a dessert plate.
Great. Will add this to my MUST DO list. Thanks so much!
OMG…I am in the kitchen at 10:30 pm looking lustfully at the Cuties on the table and longing for a mandolin of my own…NFM–I’ll use a knife…now if i could just find that sharpening stone….
and the only thing that can make this even better is food grade gold dust…i think I have some…
How beautiful! I recently made some “dust” from just the peels, and put them in a dehydrator for a few hours instead of the oven…might have to try this too!
Check out Ana Sortun’s book “Spice” for more interesting ways with citrus. Cheers!
Becky: Thank you for the idea to begin with. I think I missed the part about using just the peel, so I used the whole fruit. Really delicious, and with a pinch of sugar and salt, it’s not bitter at all.
Kristina: I love pixie dust, too! And it is kinda like that, only not as sweet. Wonder if I could store the dust in paper straws? ha!
Sharon: Get yourself a benriner. Not that expensive and saves lots of time. They come in 2 sizes, slim and wide. I have both but prefer the slim.
Karen: Thanks for the tip on the Spice book. I’ll seek it out. I have a dehydrator. In a box in the garage, ha! I should pull it out and try it.
WOW! I just returned home from my parents’ house with a bag of tangerines – and now I know what to do with them!
Hey very nice blog!! Man .. Beautiful .. Amazing .. I will bookmark your blog and take the feeds also.
great idea and wonderful photos! have a great weekend!
Wow! I never thought about orange dust! Thanks.
I’m pretty enchanted by this, the pictures, your transfixed state over the dust. And I like your action-doing it. Well dusted!
What a fabulous idea! I usually just zest my citrus fruit but mandarin orange dust sounds so magical that I have to make some.
Uh, it’s Chanukah right now. Is my “dust” in the mail? The possibilities are endless.
That stuff sounds ace.
Have you determined how long this stuff will keep before you need to get rid and make a new batch?
Regardless, I’m definitely gonna make some. I love the original idea of pairing it with something hot on seafood.
Need to go. Mouth a watery hell and no napkins in sight!
James:
The dust is really best in the first few weeks after grinding it. After a month, it starts to lose some of it’s vibrant fragrance. That’s why it’s best not to make too much at one time.
Freezing it will help keep beyond a month.
What a practical idea to prepare a citrus powder….
Thank you!
Greetings from Germany
A-Man
A-Man…. thanks for stopping by and for the warm German greeting!
Thanks for the wonderful idea. I zested a lime and let the peel dry to use in things, but have not figured out quite what to do with it. The clementine dust sounds wonderful and thanks for the ideas of what to use it for.
thank you so much for this post, i’d been enamored with this concept since dec and FINALLY i was able to do it!
You’re so welcome! I love the pictures you took for your orange dust, just lovely!
I just wanted to say, I really enjoyed your blog post and I added your link to my wordpress blog today as a recommended site – Blessings Debra!
I am thinking that I will make some of this stuff and add it to my daughters birthday cake. How can I go wrong with oranges (or clementines) and chocolate?! Thanks!
I’m thinking your daughter is a lucky girl! Thanks for commenting.
So delicious! Great write up. I’ll give you a site where I got real fruit on powder form, I mix it with milk and ice cream to go healthy. they have guava, apple, soursop, papaya, pineapple. A lot of fruits and veggies. Enjoy guys! http://www.freshlydried.com
Great tip, Sara, thanks! (And thanks for the kind words, too.)
I was looking to purchase Orange powder for a recipe and came across this. It looks fantastic! Thank you so much! Just one question. Do you think 1/8″ thick slices are too thick? Thanks so much!
Maggie, thanks for commenting… and no, I don’t think 1/8″ is too thick. I didn’t measure the thickness when I cut them, but I think that’s about what they were.
Thanks so much, out to buy some oranges and a mandolin of some sort. =) Orange dust, here we come =D Should be awesome in orange twists!
Maggie, I hope that you consider the Benriner… after culinary school, I bought an expensive Braun mandoline. It was a beauty. Unfortunately, it didn’t slice worth a darn. I have two Benriners, the narrow green one I use most often, but also a wider one for larger items like jicama and potatoes. Both of them together cost way less than that stainless steel Braun I bought.
I’m trying it for my christmas gifts, this sounds perfect for all my baking-cooking-friends and was exactly the kind of DIY-recipe I looked for. Thank you for sharing this with us!
(And I hope this try will be better than the last. Of course one shouldn’t stop thinking when using a recipe from the internet that came from the other side of the world. There’s a “little” difference between 200°F and 200°C … luckily I checked the mandarins after an hour, so at least I could save most of them.)
Franzi…. thanks for commenting! And yes, BIG difference between Fº and Cº! Glad you caught it!
Ooh, I’m inspired. I’m going to and try the mandarin dust, the oranges and experiment with my home-grown limes, lemons and kaffir limes. I think I’ll have to use a potato peeler on the kaffir limes, and leave all the pith out. Very exciting!
Thank you Bridget… the peeler should work just fine and I’m very curious about how the kaffir lime dust turns out, so please report back. I don’t have a kaffir lime tree but I wish I did.
I found a recipe for orangecream fruit leather. It called for orange powder. Yummmm, tangerines? Even better. Fun post, thanks.
I recently bought a sweet/savory salt that had chilies, cinnamon, orange peel, sugar. it was quite expensive so I’ll be trying my own blend with this! it was delicious on grilled scallops
Trying this with some key limes that are almost past their prime. This sounds so much easier than trying to zest those little buggers with a microplane. Thanks!
Well – I made some!!
Strangest thing i ever made.
Like you said – it’s intense.
Now – I jus wonder what I’ll do with it 😉