Recipe: Cold Candied Oranges

Here’s a perfect Halloween treat that makes the most of California oranges. It reaches us however, from the beloved New York City restaurant, Prune. Gabrielle Hamilton is the chef/owner of the restaurant, and her highly-anticipated cookbook comes out this Tuesday.

Try this recipe from her new book that is at once a a bitter, sweet and juicy treat.

Hear more from Gabrielle on Saturday’s Good Food.

Cold Candied Oranges

Yield: 4 orders

4 small firm juicy seedless oranges with thin skins

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Prepare a pot of boiling water, just large enough to hold the oranges submerged. Wash and dry the oranges and channel attractively from stem to navel at 1⁄2″ intervals. Simmer the oranges, turning and dunking them regularly to be sure they cook evenly, for approximately 25 minutes until they swell and soften but do not collapse or split. Include the long threads of zest. Remove the oranges from the simmering water with a spider and throw away blanching water.

In a stainless steel pot combine the sugar and water and stir it well to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and allow to boil 10 minutes.Carefully place blanched oranges and zest into the sugar syrup and reduce to a low simmer. Simmer the oranges in the syrup for approximately 30 minutes, stirring and rotating and dunking frequently until a high gloss and kind of translucence occur. They float and will candy unevenly if you don’t attend to them.

Cool oranges in their own syrup for a full 24 hours before serving. This kind of “cures” them.

Serve straight from refrigerator, very cold. One whole orange, a little of its own syrup. Waiters will set fork and knife and spoon at table.

Excerpted from PRUNEby Gabrielle Hamilton. Copyright © 2014 by Gabrielle Hamilton. Excerpted by permission of Random House, A Penguin Random House Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.