Trying Every Type Of Citrus | The Big Guide | Epicurious

There are over 310 identified varieties of citrus. Today, we're gonna go over some of the most commonly found, rare, and delicious cultivars. I'll be showing you how to slice, peel, taste, and correctly use 18 different types of citrus. The navel orange. So the navel orange is one of the most commonly purchased and grown types of citrus in the U.S. It's so common because it has a high sugar content. It's also high in vitamin C, and it's yummy. All citrus families are descended from three main types, pomelo, citron, and mandarin. From these three, there have been hybrids and crossbreeds chosen for certain characteristics from which all other families are descended. The navel orange is the mother citrus of the orange family. So that means that all other types of oranges are crossbreeds of the navel with something from another family. While it's growing, it develops an immature fruit opposite from the stem and results in this little belly button looking thing you see down here. So directly in the center here, you have part of the stem. Right around here, you have the segments. Outside of that, this white part is called the pith. The pith tends to be very bitter. That's not something you're really gonna eat. And then you see the skin or the zest just in a thin layer right around the outside of the pith. So the zest and skin also has a ton of flavor. So that's something that you would wanna keep whether you're combining it with sugar or putting it into a cake batter. Something fun you'll see is bartenders twisting it and holding it up to a fire because the essential oils will actually ignite. Whenever you apply heat to something, it just brings out the flavor and the aroma even more. But the segments on the inside, that's what the orange is all about. It's sweet, but not crazy sweet. You don't get a lot of tartness with the navel orange. The only way I can describe it is like an orange. The moro blood orange. Moro is the most common type of the blood oranges. And they're called blood oranges because of the color on the inside. On the outside, you can see where the color is really starting to grow around the side. And that's gonna vary from orange to orange. Just like the navel orange, it has the stem end. But on the opposite side, it doesn't have that distinct navel. Also, it does not peel very easily. This seems to be a characteristic of the orange family where it has that tightly adhered skin. So this color is beautiful. It's a deep, deep red color, which is produced by the natural occurrence of anthocyanins in the orange. It is, however, very rare to see anthocyanin in the presence of acid. So that's why blood oranges are so cool to have that color. Hmm. This really tastes like eating a blackberry along with a slice of navel orange. Because of the color, it's great to add to all types of salads or fennel or roasted other vegetables where you want some like pops of color. Another thing I like to do is slice it thinly, dry them in the oven. They're crisp all the way through, but they've retained this amazing color. So these, I would just drop right into a cocktail or right into a glass of seltzer water. And you'll see the color slowly bleed out and you'll get to impart all those notes of berry flavor in your beverage. It's really nice. Seville sour orange. The sour orange was actually the only type of orange in Europe for 500 years. And from there, it was the first orange to come to the Americas. Today, it's most widely used in the Caribbean. The Seville sour orange is much smaller than the navel orange. You can see the color has a little bit of a green blush to it as well. The skin is actually tougher than the navel orange. And you can see the pith here just does not wanna let go. That's definitely gonna be an orange that we have to slice. I'm seeing a thicker skin on the outside than we saw with the navel. So it makes sense that it was tougher because the skin is actually thicker into the pith than it was on the others. I'm also seeing seeds in this one, which we did not see in the navel orange nor in the blood orange. Oranges without seeds are usually crossbred to select for no seeds or smaller seeds. The Seville sour orange has not been crossbred. So you're still gonna get a lot of seeds in them. I'm gonna taste this, but I have a feeling that I'm really gonna regret this. Oh, ooh, that is so tart. This is definitely not an orange that you wanna go eating. It's used mostly in marinades for protein. And it's also used a lot in candies and marmalades, something where you're adding sugar to it to cook it and preserve it. So here I've actually made some sour orange marmalade. It's been thinly sliced so you can still see parts of the pith, but as it's cooked down, all of the pulp has separated and kind of melded into this one homogenous mass where you just have little pieces of the outer pith and flesh that are completely translucent through cooking with sugar. Mm, that's much better. Bergamot orange. The bergamot orange comes from Southern Italy from the Calabria region. Super tart, super bitter. Again, this is not a type of orange that you want to eat. The bergamot orange is primarily used for its essential oil, which is extracted from the skin. The essential oil is one of the most commonly used ingredients in the making of perfume. The skin is thicker, just like it was on the sour orange, which makes sense because the sour orange and the bergamot are more closely related. Okay, I feel like I'm gonna regret this one too. It's more sour, almost, than the sour orange, but not nearly as bitter as I thought it would be. It has a very intense flavor, and if you've ever had earl gray tea, this is what you're tasting. So, like I said, bergamot is the essential citrus that you want to use for tea. So what we're gonna do is flavor a little bit of our own black tea with bergamot to kind of make earl gray. There's so many of the essential oils in the actual skin of the bergamot that the flavor is going to keep intensifying as it sits on the hot water. I'm gonna pour it onto even more bergamot. It's mild, but very citrusy, but none of the tartness that we got from eating the flesh of the fruit, which was intense. Ah, it's like a tea break. The citron. The citron is one of the three types of citrus from which all others are descended. References to the citron date back to the third millennium BC, and it's also known as the fruit of the hedarchery, which is used in religious ceremonies. It actually looks like a gigantic lemon, except the main difference is that the skin itself is ribbed from top to bottom. So this is a very interesting looking citrus in the cross section. The pith is incredibly thick. I could feel the resistance going through that part, even with a very sharp knife. Cutting into it, I don't see any juice leaking out. Oh yeah, that's tart. It does taste like a lemon, but the membranes are incredibly thick, so I could barely even break them with my teeth when I tried to bite into this. You will have the flavoring, the zest, used in some cooking applications, but it's not something that you'll see a lot of. Pretty tasty, though. The next member of this family is really interesting. I think you're gonna love this one. This is the Buddhist hand. I mean, that's the best nickname I could come up with, and that's its actual name, Buddhist hand citron. The Buddhist hand is thought to originate in South or East Asia, and it's frequently used as a temple offering. Because there's no juice or pulp, you're typically gonna use Buddhist hand to candy or zest it. I've never eaten it raw before, and it's not bad. I wouldn't do it at home. Don't just go eating pith, please. Because this is so aromatic and has such a great flavor, I think one of the best ways to use it is to make a vinaigrette. So first, we're gonna grate some of the zest using a microplane. Because the Buddhist hand has absolutely no juice, we're gonna add a little bit of lemon juice with a little pinch of salt and pepper, a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, and pour it over our salad. It's still incredibly floral, and you still taste the Buddhist hand through everything else. It's so aromatic that you get it and it cuts through all of the oil and the lemon juice to really shine. The lime. There are at least 20 different types of limes, although the Persian lime is by far the most widely grown in the world and sold commercially as limes. Persian limes are a cross between the key lime and lemons. Just like the skin on the outside, it has a beautiful green color, and you'll notice that the pith is very thin. So that lets you know that the lime is not as bitter as some of the other citrus. Oh. It's the kind of like tart that makes you wanna come back for another, but it's more than just sour. It has a lot of character and flavor to it. There are so many ways to use limes. From using the zest, I would sprinkle over fish, I would add it into certain types of soups or stews, to the juice itself, to flavor ingredients, or be the star of a beverage. However, there is one application of limes that I love that is not as common here in the US. Dried Persian limes are a staple in several parts of the world. To make dried limes, you want to blanch your fresh limes and then put them into ice water to shock them and stop the cooking. From there, you're just gonna place them in a 200 degree oven for about a day and a half to two days, or until they're completely dry all the way through. You can throw them whole into stews. You can crush them and sprinkle them over the top of finished dishes to add that flavor. This is a lemon. The lemon is actually a cross between citron and sour orange, but it is one of the most ubiquitous citrus used in America. One of the coolest things about the lemon is that it is grown year round. The typical cycle for citrus is the tree fruits between October and March, and then goes dormant in the off season, storing up energy to produce fruit again for the next year. But one of the coolest things about the lemon is that it does not have a particular growing season like most citrus does. The tree can be producing new fruit and maturing fruit at the same time. So it has a natural year round cycle. The skin is a lot softer than some of the other citrus we've looked at, and it is super floral. When you think of citrus and the smell of it, this is probably what comes to mind. Unlike the lime, the pith is much thicker. This lets me know that it's gonna have a little bit more bitterness to it, and it's just a beautiful yellow color. Lemon can be used in a number of ways. To me, one of the quintessential ways to really highlight the flavor is to make lemon curd. It's essentially a custard with pure lemon juice. It's creamy, it's citrusy, it's rich. It's like a pure expression of lemon. These are finger limes. They look very different. They can come in pink or green. They can be a little thicker or a little bit thinner. So the coolest thing about finger limes is that on the inside, the vesicles or the pulp actually come out as individual pieces. Ooh, very tart, but super crunchy. All of these little pieces just kind of like explode in your mouth and give you these bursts of like lemongrass and ginger-scented lime. This is definitely something that you don't wanna cook or alter too much. What you wanna do is squeeze out the pulp onto a dish, and instead of adding acid juice in liquid form, you're gonna get all these crunchy little pieces of citrus. This is a Meyer lemon. So the Meyer lemon was actually given a resurgence by none other than Martha Stewart. She plucked it from obscurity and touted its culinary attributes because it is incredibly juicy. It's a deeper yellow than any other citrus that we've seen, kind of like a lemon crossbred with the mandarin, which it actually is. The skin has deep dimples that go into the pith, so it lets you know that it's got a lot of essential oils, very aromatic. It gives you the scent of tangerine or a mandarin, but it looks kind of like a lemon. The coolest thing about this is literally the amount of juice in here. More than a regular lemon, you're gonna get almost twice the volume of juice out of this. You can use it just like you would use a normal lemon in beverages, vinaigrettes, sauces. One of the best ways to showcase it is with a citrus olive oil cake. Oh. Citrus in general makes a really nice garnish to finish everything from sweet to savory dishes. And the Meyer lemon in particular, because it doesn't have much of that tartness, is really great to just squeeze the juice at the end of things or cut it into segments and use the actual pieces of pulp in your dish. This is a pomelo. The pomelo is another of the original citrus and the ancestor to the grapefruit. It's massive, but it has a very flat bottom and a pointed top, almost like the weight of it is hanging on, sitting on the tree. On the outside, the skin is pretty smooth. It has a lot of dimples, yellow, greenish skin. And I'm really interested in the color of the flesh itself. We see very distinct, large pieces of pulp within the segments. It's not completely symmetrical like some of the other citrus we've seen. And it looks like it's gonna be pretty tasty if you ask me. Mm, it's a lot sweeter than I thought it would be. It's also very juicy. I wouldn't normally cook with a pomelo. I would kind of want to just enjoy it on its own. It has a really great flavor and sweetness, very similar to grapefruit, but a little bit lighter flavor. This is a red grapefruit. The ruby red grapefruit was the first patented type of hybrid grapefruit. The grapefruit skin has a ton of dimples and the color is varied all over. So it's got parts that are more orange and parts that have more of a blush color. I mean, it's peeling like the pomelo was, but because the pith on these is so bitter, this is gonna be something that we're gonna want to suprême. Let me show you how. So suprême is a fancy French term for cutting the segments out of the membranes. You first want to cut to expose the fruit on the top and the bottom. Then you want to cut the skin and pith completely away from the exterior. You definitely want to have a sharp knife. If your knife is dull, you're just gonna beat the grapefruit up. You're just gonna cut on the inside of each line of white that you see. It is just a more refined way to serve it. And you're also getting rid of the excess bitterness by cutting it out of the membrane. Really nice for salads to serve with rich dishes as well to really help cut through and balance that. But I also prefer to just eat it on its own. Now, the mandarin. Mandarins are another one of the original citrus from which all other are hybrids. Although the original mandarin was tart, and modern mandarins are actually mixed with pomelo to add sweetness. Under the category of mandarin, we also have satsumas, clementines, sumos, and tangerines. Mandarins are almost flat on both ends and round in the center. They're wider than they are tall. Not a perfect circle, like some of the citrus. The skin is coming off very easily. It's not super tightly adhered to the flesh. This is probably the first citrus that we've peeled today where you can see the flesh through the pith. Finally, a non-sour citrus that I get to eat today. This is incredibly well-balanced. It has sweetness, it has tartness, and really intense juiciness. I've used them a little bit for cooking, but primarily just have them on their own. This is a kishu mandarin. Similar to the original mandarin, kishus have a lot of the same properties. The outside almost looks like a UFO. It's flat on both ends, so it gives it a little bit of a short squat appearance. Wow, the skin just comes right off of this one. Easy. The color is gorgeous. It's one of those characteristics indicative of the mandarin family that makes you just wanna bite into it. I like this family. They're juicy, they're sweet, but have enough acidity to balance it out so it's not like eating a ball of sugar. This is the satsuma. The satsuma looks more similar to the first mandarin. You can see how it has air bubbles underneath where it's separated from the actual fruit, almost like the fruit is jangling around inside of the skin. It's like a pair of loose-fitting jeans. Nice. Look at that. Stringy, just like the characteristics of the mandarin pith, and the segments separate very easily as well. There are some large seeds in here that pop out very easily. Usually seedless my ass. Mm, mm-hmm, that is delicious. You're gonna get a burst of liquid as soon as you bite into it. Because mandarins are so delicious and so vibrant orange, I like to just feature them on top of something like a salad. The sweetness will go really nicely with bitter greens like endive, treviso, and radicchio, and it doesn't need much. A little salt, pepper, and a very light vinaigrette, and there you have it. A very simple, delicious way to highlight your mandarins. This is the kumquat. Kumquats are a separate family of citrus. They have hybrids within themselves, crossbred with other types of citrus, but the kumquat has distinct characteristics that make it its own. The skin of the kumquat is super smooth. You see little dimples, but you don't really feel them. So cutting into the kumquat, you can see that there are only four segments, and you can see that there are seeds in here as well, but you can eat the whole thing. Oh, oh dear God. The juice and the flesh are super sour, but the skin is actually kind of sweet. It is a nice counterbalance to have that sweet skin and the tart interior, but oh my God, that interior is so tart. It would go really well thinly sliced and sprinkled over a salad because then you would get little pops of tartness instead of a big bite like I just took. I would definitely pickle slices or pickle them whole, but I wouldn't eat it on its own. This is the kalamandin. The kalamandin is native to Southern China, and from there, it's spread across Indonesia and the Philippines. It's a little different from the kumquat, especially in its shape. You can see that this is like a nicely round shape, and it has a little dimple across from the stem end on the bottom that goes inward. The kalamandin actually has more uses than the kumquat. It's used kind of like lemons and limes, squeezed for its tart, sour juice on top of dishes. It's also eaten whole with the peel and everything as a breath freshener. Oh! For the kalamandin, I think one of the best ways to work with it is to make a beverage because it is super juicy and super aromatic, but because it's super tart, we're also gonna add some sugar. So I'm just gonna pop the kalamandin straight into this muddler. I'm gonna add a little bit of simple syrup, and I'm just gonna crush these together to release a lot of the juice from the kalamandin. I'm gonna pour this syrup over ice and just finish it with club soda. That is really fricking good. Now you can taste the citrus without being killed by all that tartness, and it's really floral. It actually has a beautiful flavor. You just have to get past that tartness. So that was citrus. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you learned a lot, and I hope you get to try some of the techniques and recipes that we made today. Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you wanna see next time on The Big Guide. I'm Adrienne Cheatham, and I hope to see you soon. Mwah.