cook: candied kumquats

I've been snacking all winter on citrus, mostly tangerines, and so when my friend, Feliz gave me thumbprint cookies filled with kumquat jam, I gobbled them as my evening dessert. Recently, she gave me a pound and a half of kumquats, which I decided to candy. What's interesting about kumquats is that the whole fruit, including skin, pith and seeds is edible, but what's sweetest is the peel. The juice is what's most bitter of the fruit. I started de-seeding the kumquats late one evening and then gave up to go to bed even though I'd only a handful left. I was exhausted that Saturday after my first morning of outrigger canoe paddling a few months after the off-season practices were over and then shuttling all over a few towns over to grocery shop.

 

I resumed on a super bright Sunday morning to slicing and removing seeds from the rest of the kumquats.

The recipe is super easy to candy kumquats. You merely boil sugar and water to make a syrup for 10 minutes and then add kumquats to simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes. Then you strain the kumquats and let its syrup simmer for another 10 minutes.

 

I decanted the kumquats back into the quart jar and then poured most of the boiled syrup over them.

I love how jeweled the fruit looks in the jar and decided that a little of the candied kumquat would be tasty in a buttery shortbread cookie.