Courtney and Gail, friends from Canada, were visiting recently. The holidays are coming so while they were here she sliced and dried a few oranges in our dehydrator. I believe she was interested in their decorative uses – holiday decor, gift tags, potpourri. Although I can appreciate their aesthetics value, my interest in them is purely culinary – snacks, flavoring drinks, cooking.
Dehydrated orange slices are one of those things that look like they belong in a craft store until you realize you can actually eat them. They’re great for tossing into tea, lemonade, or other drinks, and you can simmer them with chicken, pork, fish, sauces, or stews when you want a concentrated hit of orange without squeezing half the fruit into dinner. They also play nicely with chocolate, cookies, muffins, yogurt, oatmeal, and granola, and if you grind the completely dried slices into a powder, you’ve basically created orange seasoning that can be sprinkled on almost anything that needs a little citrus kick. The peel adds some bitterness, which is a fancy way of saying the orange has developed an attitude, but that bitterness can actually make the flavor more interesting.