Day 18: Vegan dish: Orange Slices in Honey Syrup - April 4, 2013

Do you ever have a day when you want something sweet, but not too sweet?  Or, you want something juicy sweet, but you get tired of eating raw fruit?  We have days like that.  And, with that in mind, we found this lovely preparation for orange slices in a honey syrup.

Citrus is a great winter fruit.  Of course, if we were in Greece, there would be an abundance of citrus fruit throughout the year (particularly during this time of year)-- with lemons, oranges, and grapefruits ... the list goes on!  And, we know that citrus is grown in many parts of the world.  Even OUR house has a lemon tree in Toronto!  The point is that citrus fruit are plentiful and in such great variety; they are rarely boring.

So, why would we douse an orange with syrup?  Well, the idea behind this dish is that it makes the fruit fancier.  In this dish, you get the sweetness of the honey in the syrup working with the slightly sour juice of the orange, and you get symphony of flavours.  It is refreshing and bright, and can be served by itself (like glyko tou koutaliou) or over yogurt or ice cream (not during Lent), or just plain cake.  This dish will last in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container.

For this recipe, you will need the following:

2 oranges, peeled and sliced
3 TBSP honey
1/8 cup orange juice
1 TBSP orange liqueur or brandy
cinnamon, to taste, for garnish

The preparation is pretty straightforward, and the most important part of the directions is making sure that the oranges are cleaned well.  Instead of just peeling the orange, use a knife and follow the line of where the white pith meets the flesh, and carve off the skin as if you were skinning a melon.  Make sure none of the white pith remains on the sides, because that is the bitter part of the fruit and can ruin the end result of your product.

Lay the slices into a single layer, or alternating double layers.  We used a glass baking dish.  The important part is that all of the orange slices become fully covered with the syrup, and laying them out in single layer form allows that one side of every slice will be in syrup.  If you are lucky, then both sides will be covered.  There have been some poeple who would put the slices in a bowl, lining the sides of the bowl so that half of each slice was dipped, and then they would occassionally shake the bowl to coat the other half of each slice.  The flat dish worked for us, but you may try a bowl.  Lay all the orange slices together.  If there are some that are not complete circles, you should snack on those, or put them in a separate dish for the family.  It sounds like something a mother would say, "Save the nice looking pieces for company."  But, in this case, we agree.

Now, make the syrup.  The syrup starts by putting the honey, orange juice and liqueur into a sauce pan or a frying pan.  Mix the ingredients together in the pan and put it on medium high heat.  Heat the syrup until it just comes to the boiling point.  Once it starts to boil, turn down the heat to a medium low and simmer for about 10 minutes.  You don't want to cook the syrup too much because it will become dark brown because of the honey in the recipe.  By keeping the heat at medium low, you are giving enough heat to cook through the alcohol, but not enough to change the light golden colour of the honey and juice mixture.

Now, pour that hot syrup over the organge slices.  Try to distribute the syrup to coat all of the slices.  And, please note that the warm syrup will somewhat penetrate the pourous orange slices.  But now you have to cover the dish and let it stay in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours to completly cool and set a bit.  The syrup will not solidify.  When you add alcohol to things they don't solidify, so the liquid will not become viscous.  But the syrup does cool and will seem to be a little thicker than when it was hot.  So, make sure to give the dish time in the refrigerator to cool thoroughly. After tasting the final product both husband and two others commented that this was a very juicy, refreshing and, surprisingly, not cloyingly sweet at all. Yum!

Please note the powdered cinnamon over the oranges and syrup

When serving, sprinkle a little cinnamon on top (unless you are a cinnamon hater).  Serve this at the end of any meal and it will satisfy any thoughts of dessert in a healthier manner than some other dessert choices.  This is a delicious and easy way to incorporate fruit into a meal, as the Greeks often do!

If you want to make variations for oranges in honey syrup, you could add cloves or allspice berries to the syrup, use a different type of liqueur, or use a different citrus fruit.  We are looking forward to trying to make this with grilled pineapple slices!  If you come up with another combination appropriate for Great Lent, we would love to hear your ideas.

“As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.”

St. John Chrysostomos