Oh my darling (16) Clementine(s)

February 13, 2018 3:30 AM

I have 16 clementines that are going to go bad soon if I don’t do something with them. What would be a good way to use them all at once?
posted by ocherdraco to Food & Drink (24 answers total)

Make juice?
posted by yawper at 3:36 AM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I have made this Nigella Lawson clementine cake and it's good!
posted by velveeta underground at 3:42 AM on February 13, 2018 [12 favorites]

Came in here to recommend that Nigella cake. Won't use them all in one cake, but that just gives you an excuse to make it more than once.
posted by peacheater at 3:49 AM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

Make preserved clementines! Or even better, candied clementines!
posted by halation at 4:34 AM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Granita!
posted by Sweetie Darling at 4:36 AM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

orange chicken! also, zest them all, let the zest dry and use it later in any recipe that calls for citrus.
posted by sexyrobot at 4:43 AM on February 13, 2018

Clementine sangria! Awhile back during a holiday party, I had a bowl of clementines as a table decoration. Halfway through the night when the various bottles of liquor starting to run low, one of my friends poured white wine, Sprite, seltzer and mixed in whatever liquor was left into a punch bowl. We peeled and crushed most of the clementines into this concoction, including a few crushed clementine skins. We tasted and adjusted frequently...I could never replicate that again but oh my gudness, it was delicious.
posted by IndigoOnTheGo at 5:06 AM on February 13, 2018

Yes to the cake! (You can save a little time and fuss if you chop up the clementines before you cook them - simmer gently in a little water until tender and make sure the pan doesn't get dry).

An orange salad would use up a lot. Here's another.
posted by bunderful at 5:44 AM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Seconding the nigella clementine cake, as a bonus the house smells wonderful for the 2 hours they are boiling.
posted by TheAdamist at 6:00 AM on February 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

A friend gifted me a bottle of homemade clemencello one christmas... it was lovely.
posted by greenish at 6:11 AM on February 13, 2018 [3 favorites]

Candy the peels, and freeze the remaining fruit for bits of juice as needed.
posted by OrangeVelour at 6:13 AM on February 13, 2018

Different cake than the Nigella one everyone's recommending, but I've made this one and it's really good.
posted by dlugoczaj at 7:15 AM on February 13, 2018

Personally, I would just eat them, one after the other, all sixteen of them.

But you could also make a clementine marmalade, or juice and zest them and make clementine curd.
posted by desuetude at 7:16 AM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

You could separate some into sections and then put in a ziploc and freeze them and use as edible ice cubes in drinks
posted by rmless at 7:33 AM on February 13, 2018 [2 favorites]

I immediately thought of these two ingredient candied citrus pops, but you'd need to have an event or lots of friends to share them with if you made 16 clementines worth! They would also be an incredible fancy flourish for on top of one of the cake recipes mentioned above.
posted by Sweetchrysanthemum at 7:43 AM on February 13, 2018

With tomorrow being Valentine's Day, you could separate the sections and dip them in dark chocolate and share with friends or coworkers.
posted by shortyJBot at 9:04 AM on February 13, 2018

If you can't make all of these lovely clementine recipes before they all go off, then I'd go ahead and zest what's left, then juice them. Freeze the zest, and the juice, and you'll be able to make recipes that require orange juice and orange zest for a good long while. (The zest is culinary gold - don't toss it!)
posted by PearlRose at 9:38 AM on February 13, 2018

Clementine cake (Smitten Kitchen's version is Nigella's, but see the note about a shorter baking time), yes! Juice remaining fruit, and freeze juice in ice cube trays for future recipes, including smoothies. Each cube = an ounce. Store cubes in a freezer bag.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:41 PM on February 13, 2018

You’d need to make a bit more than this recipe (or this plus something else) but I love this Ottolenghi Pernod/arak clementine chicken dish: https://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/roasted-chicken-with-clementines-arak-shop
posted by conkystconk at 12:52 PM on February 13, 2018

You could make the polish liqueur mandarynkowa.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:24 PM on February 13, 2018

Similar to halation's links above, I like preserving and candying clementines. If you're interested in a very time consuming project I highly recommend this clementines confit recipe. It does require a lot of babysitting at first, but eating the aged clementines even months later whole, or chopped over ice-cream was a real treat. The syrup is also great with drinks: add syrup to taste with dark rum (we used Meyer's) and club soda.
posted by perrouno at 12:10 AM on February 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Juice for mimosas!
posted by eglenner at 3:13 AM on February 14, 2018

Response by poster: I made two clementine cakes tonight and they are delicious. Thank you everyone!
posted by ocherdraco at 9:48 PM on February 23, 2018 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: (And yes, even though I thought the clementines were on their last legs, they made it 10 more days.)
posted by ocherdraco at 9:49 PM on February 23, 2018