What to do with sour clementines?
The BF & I love clementines, and go through a crate quickly, eating them 6-8 at a clip. A few weeks ago I bought 2 crates from Peapod. There was no mention on the site that they'd switched brands, and the 2 crates we got are terrible! I've let them sit out, in hopes that they'd ripen & sweeten up, but that doesn't seem to be happening. I hate to waste food, so I'm trying to come up with something else to do with them. The best that we can come up with is putting them into some vodka to make clementine infused vodka. We're not sweets people, so I don't want to bake a cake with them. Does anyone have any good ideas or recipes that'll use up all of these tart clementines? Thanks!
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10 Comments:
The sourness might go well in a marinade you sweeten up with some honey and soy, or some cumin.
Make a thin pesto of the juice, some fresh sage leaves, S&P, a handful of walnuts and a dash of cayenne.
Use in salad dressing.
Use as the braising liquid for a pork roast, or just scatter some segments in the pan with the meat.
Mix with some orange juice to cut the sweetness some.
sadiepix at 5:16PM on 02/23/09
marmalade.
mmclau28 at 5:38PM on 02/23/09
Are they just too tart to eat out of hand or so sour you wouldn't consider putting them in anything that doesn't involve lots of sugar or other ingredients? If its the former, I'd say, just juice them up and keep them on hand as an acid replacement in any sauce/vinaigrette. Or add a bit of sugar and make nice tart popsicles.
I had a special version of agua de Valencia made with Clementine juice when I was there. Not sure of the exact proportions, but I'd say it was something like 2 cups juice, 1/2 cup gin, splash of orange liqeur, tablespoon of sugar, all topped with a bottle of cold cava. Mix this in a pitcher and pretend it's summer:)
Embackus at 6:07PM on 02/23/09
roast up some chicken pieces with the tangerines .... open them up, i never peel them because the peel adds flavor .... i place the chicken on a bed of onions, garlic and tangerines, plenty of salt and pepper -- whole garlic cloves, too. it's pretty good.... you can also do a version with soy sauce, ginger etc....
i always use my citrus with chicken... especially in the case of so-so fruit...
what the heck.
pooch at 8:06PM on 02/23/09
I once lived in an orange grove and once in a while we'd get a tree that only had 'sour' oranges on it. we would juice them, add some sugar and make orange ade. you could grate the rinds, freeze it for future use first. get douple duty out of em.
nightmoon at 8:51PM on 02/23/09
There's some great ideas here! I think I'll do the chicken and salad dressing for starters. Mainly because I've been looking for a new chicken dish and love making my own salad dressings.
Thanks so much, and keep 'em coming. :)
dupreeblue at 11:06PM on 02/23/09
If they're truly sour, wouldn't they make a delicious "clementine meringue pie?" You could adjust the sugar accordingly!
BangieB at 11:25PM on 02/23/09
I recently made a compote in the slow cooker with some sour clementines and black olives that turned out very well. If I remember right, I sliced up about 5 clementines into 1/4" slices and mixed them with 1/2 cup of sugar and 12 chopped pitted oil cured black olives and I cooked them on low for about 5 hours. When it was finished, I stirred about a TBSP of Grand Marnier into the compote. Delicious.
I used the rest of my sour clementines to make a Caribbean-style marinade for pork shoulder. I usually use sour oranges (naranja agria, I think they're called) and mix their juice and rind with garlic, cumin, oregano, salt, pepper and olive oil.
LadyMarmalade at 11:51AM on 02/24/09
I recall seeing Nigella Lawson make this clementine cake and it uses the entire clementine, flesh and skin.
http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=20002
You could always stab a bunch of cloves in the clementines and shake them in ground cinnamon for pomandors. Sometimes you really do learn the best things in kindergarten.
ag3208 at 3:53PM on 02/25/09
Thanks all! I made a delicious roast chicken last night with clementines, onion, garlic, rosemary and some other things (as well as some roasted potatoes). I juiced a bunch of the clementines (the juice is divine), and it's chilling in the fridge. There are some more left. Not sure what I'll do with them, but I went from about 40 to about 12, and dinner was delicious, so I consider it a smashing success!
dupreeblue at 1:43PM on 02/26/09