Oranges with Olive Oil & Chocolate | Chef Alice Medrich
This dish is the perfect balance of sweet, tangy, and bitter. Use good fruit, good chocolate, and your special finishing oil. Choose an olive oil that’s not too mild and buttery, yet not too robust and peppery. (Karen’s note: Our Mandarin Orange Olive Oil carries the flavors without overpowering.)
Recipe courtesy of Alice Medrich, dessert chef, chocolatier, and award-winning author; photo by James Ransom on https://food52.com/recipes/67491-oranges-with-olive-oil-and-chocolate
Ingredients:
6 navel oranges or oranges of choice
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, more to taste
1 ounce dark chocolate (I like 70-72% cacao), more to taste
3/8 teaspoon flakey sea salt or more, to taste
Directions:
Use a sharp knife to remove the peel, pith, and all of the white membrane from each orange as follows: Cut a generous slice from the end of one orange to expose a round of bare fruit about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Repeat with the other end. Set the orange, one of the cut end’s down, on the cutting board. Starting at the top edge of the rind, follow the contour of the fruit as you cut downward with a very short sawing stroke to remove a wide strip of rind pith, and membrane. Continue around the fruit, removing as much membrane as possible without wasting too much fruit. Repeat with the remaining oranges, saving any juices from the cutting board.
Slice the oranges thinly and arrange the slice, slightly overlapping, on a serving platter. Pour any collected orange juices over the slices and then drizzle with the olive oil. Using the coarse holes on your box or flat grater, grate the chocolate over the oranges and then sprinkle them with the salt. You can pass the olive oil bottle and salt—and even the chunk of chocolate and grater—around at the table, if you like. At my house, everyone likes to customize.
Author, pastry chef, and teacher, Alice Medrich is one of the country’s foremost experts on chocolate and chocolate desserts. Since 1976, when her renowned shop, Cocolat, opened and her first dessert feature (of many) appeared in a national publication, Alice’s innovative ideas and recipes and her insistence on quality ingredients have influenced a generation of confectioners, pastry chefs, and home cooks.
