Blood Orange Soup Recipe. The first time I saw a blood orange was in Italy at Villa d’Este on Lake Como in 1985. John asked for orange juice at breakfast and they brought what we thought was tomato juice. When our Italian and the waiter’s English were unequal to the task, he brought an orange, cut it open, and showed us the source. Slightly less acidic and fragrant with memories, blood oranges are my first choice when they’re available. In California, they begin to ripen in January and last until the first strawberries appear in spring.
Recipe from Chocolate for Breakfast: The Cookbook, Oak Knoll Inn, Napa Valley
See our review here.
Serve this with a chocolate spoon cookie such as the one in the cookbook, Chocolate Madeleine Spoon.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds blood oranges, peeled, sectioned and seeded
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 vanilla bean
- 2 cups blood orange juice
- 2 cups mandarin or other orange juice
Preparation
- 1 To section an orange: This is the citrus version of boning and skinning a chicken. The goal is to remove the skin and underlying white pith, any seeds and the membrane between the sections of the orange.
- 2 At the top and bottom of the orange, slice off the peel and pith and set the orange on your cutting board. Following the curve of the orange with your knife, slice away the remaining peel and pith.
- 3 Blood orange sections are typically smaller than those of other oranges, and the membrane is more delicate. If the membrane is so delicate that it's almost indistinguishable from the orange section, then forget getting rid of it and cut the peeled blood orange in slices across the equator.
- 4 If, however, the membrane behaves itself and stays intact, then It's strong enough to be annoying in the soup, and also strong enough to cut away. Over a bowl to catch the juice, hold the orange in your hand and cut as close to the membrane between two sections as you can get, stopping when you reach the middle of the orange. Twist your knife so that the blade travels up the opposite side of the section to pry it away from the membrane on the other side. Repeat until all of the sections are removed.
- 5 To prepare blood orange soup: Place orange sections in a heavy sauté pan. With a sharp knife, scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add it and the scrapings to the pan along with the sugar.
- 6 Place over a medium high flame and cook until the sugar melts and the mixture starts to bubble -- 4 or 5 minutes. Reduce heat and cook about 10 more minutes so that the blood orange sections are soft but still intact.
- 7 Add the juice and just warm it slightly. Serve with a chocolate spoon cookie.
