Benjamin L-B's Profile

Hi everyone,
I was inspired once I read this, because of the simplicity of the recipe and how great it looks. As soon as I got to work this morning, I gathered 6 oranges (no blood-oranges on hand) and I grabbed the tin of Agar-Agar and went to work. Instead of adding honey or lots of sugar (I did add a small handfull for taste), I mixed my freshly squeezed orange juice with fresh bottled orange juice. Due to the variety of oranges used in quality pure orange juices, it gives it a less acidic taste. For your information, Tropicana uses the same 6 varieties in every juice, that's how it gets its great taste.

For 1 litre of juice (fresh from my oranges bottle orange juice), my chef recommended using 3.5 grams of the powder, and I did just that. I brought the liquid and sugar mixture to a boil, at this point added the agar, and let it boil for 2 minutes while gently stirring/whisking. After 2 minutes, I passed the juice in the fine chinois, and filled my halved oranges with the liquid, and let it sit for 2 hours.

The result...a wonderful tasting jelly, with an amazing color. My worry was that I was not going to be able to cut through it, but I used a small serrated tomato knife to cut though it, peel side first, and it gave it a clean cut, without hurting the jelly. The only thing I would to different is serve it at a colder temperature then what I tried, which was at 4 degrees Celsius. I should have used the blast chiller/cooler, and the result would have been more refreshing.