Recipe incorporating preserved cumquats?

August 29, 2012 4:54 AM

I preserved a lot of cumquats in liquor. The liquor is nice, but the cumquats themselves too are sour and bitter to eat. Is there a recipe I could use them in? I'm thinking something like a fruitcake, but I don't know how to incorporate them.
posted by Joe in Australia to food & drink (10 answers total)

Could you cook them down with sugar to make jam, or are you trying to avoid adding excess sugar?

If the latter, perhaps they would be nice added to a curry or tagine, in the way raisins, apricots or plums can be?
posted by Sockery Pokery at 5:07 AM on August 29, 2012

I did try making a marmalade out of a few, which was nice, but you would be amazed how quickly I get tired of marmalade. The tagine idea sounds interesting and I might try that. What sort of curry dish were you imagining?
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:32 AM on August 29, 2012

I don't know about the tagine. Fruit works in tagine by adding sweetness (you don't actually add sugar to the recipe), and the bitterness of your kumquats may not work.
posted by bluefly at 6:11 AM on August 29, 2012

Alton Brown's fruitcake recipe starts with fruit soaked in liquor. You might look at it for inspiration. I've never made it myself, but I have always intended to.

I have made a bundt cake, like this one, only I used oranges instead of cumquats. When you make the puree, I would just drain the cumquats well and use that. In fact, I imagine you could make a puree like this and add it to almost any recipe -- I'm imagining cumquat muffins. Yum!
posted by OrangeDisk at 6:27 AM on August 29, 2012

I use preserved lemons in tagine all the time, and it works fine. I preserve my lemons in salt, so it adds salt and bitterness to the dish.

I'd like to recommend that you keep a few for garnishing martinis. We garnish our martinis at home with preserved orange peel, and it is delicious.
posted by LN at 6:27 AM on August 29, 2012

I made vanilla-poached cumquats and asian pear fruit salad once. It was pretty good. The syrup did a good job of cutting the sourness of the cumquats, and the alcohol might add a nice touch.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:40 AM on August 29, 2012

I made this Gingerbread Cake with Candied Kumquats for a gathering this past Christmas and it got RAVES from everyone who tasted it. You sort of chop all the kumquats together into a marmalade-ish substance and use it to fill and garnish the cake.
posted by fancyoats at 7:08 AM on August 29, 2012 [2 favorites]

Chicken a L'Orange?
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:18 AM on August 29, 2012

Make them one element in a dried fruit compote with ginger.
posted by BibiRose at 8:27 AM on August 29, 2012

The Tartine cookbook has a recipe for Pecan Maple Pie with Bourbon and Kumquats. It uses fresh kumquats, but you could probably do fine on a substitution (maybe leave out the bourbon, maybe cook off some of the alcohol first).

I haven't made the recipe, but I've had a piece at Tartine and it was mindblowingly delicious. Here are a couple links to blogs that have published the recipe (have not proofread them): 1, 2.
posted by pompelmo at 9:01 AM on August 29, 2012