Before my Northeastern winter weather wandered off into Texas, a graduate school friend (let’s call her Gigi) reached out on her social media looking for ideas to use up a surfeit of super sour grapefruit. Her neighbor’s grapefruit tree had grown over the fence and the neighbor had given her permission to harvest the fruit on her side. Being the super creative individual that she is, Gigi had been using the juice in amaretto sours, whiskey sours, and palomas.
While those uses were awesome, I reached out with some ideas for the super sour grapefruit. My first idea was to use the juice instead of lemon juice or orange juice in marinades for fish. Maybe even a ceviche. My second idea was to substitute out the lemon juice in a French 75, or just mix gin with the grapefruit juice. I also endorsed her friends’ ideas on social media for grapefruit marmalade and grapefruit curd.
Being the generous friend that Gigi is, she offered to ship me a boxful of fruit (she harvested before the frost) to see what I could do with them. Before the box arrived, I conducted a series of experiments with grapefruit liqueur, most of which required grapefruit juice in addition to the pamplemousse. I also had to choose a cocktail for my Year of the Ox dinner, which required an extensive analysis of a dozen and a half blood orange cocktail recipes. And of course, I figured that I could be super frugal and adapt the orange bitters recipe from the David Lebovitz blog to repurpose all the grapefruit shells that would be leftover from using the juice in cocktails. Finally, there was always the possibility of adapting the Blood Orange Beaujolais Marmalade that I attempted last summer during my hiatus from writing. Although I was thinking of adapting the recipe to use the grapefruit juice, grapefruit peel, and a citrusy white wine.
Super Sour Grapefruit Cocktails
For reasons unknown, I woke up before six on the Saturday morning after the box arrived. That seemed like the perfect opportunity to juice a grapefruit for a breakfast cocktail. After I set up the kettle and the French press, I selected a smallish fruit from the box, sliced it in half, and squeezed both halves into an eight-ounce measuring cup. The results were roughly three ounces of juice, which was the perfect amount to adapt the Blood Orange Cardamom Bubbly recipe. I had approximately two ounces of vanilla cardamom simple syrup left in the refrigerator; although that was enough for two blood orange cocktails, I used it all to counteract the super sourness of the grapefruit juice. Once I got the syrup totally dissolved, I added the recommended two ounces of Prosecco and strained into a coupe glass. The resulting cocktail was surprisingly well-balanced: neither astringent nor sickly sweet. I probably could have added another two ounces of Prosecco, but I was already settled on the couch with my French press and a good book.
Super Sour Grapefruit Marmalade
Once I got my ideas and recipes completely organized, I decided that making marmalade would be an excellent idea to use up a good portion of the fruit. From what I remembered of the Blood Orange Beaujolais Marmalade recipe, the whole fruit was used in one form or another. The segments were sliced out and puréed while the rind was thinly sliced and diced.
Just before I left the house to shop my list, I searched “grapefruit” on the David Lebovitz blog. That came up with a very interesting marmalade recipe that used four pink grapefruit and six ounces of sweet red vermouth. It was a bit fussier than the recipe I had planned to adapt, but there was just something about the pairing of the sour grapefruit with the sweetness and aromatics of a decent red vermouth that seriously intrigued me. So I checked the house stock to discover a very large bottle of Martini & Rossi (yay!) with what looked to be a scant one-third cup left in the bottom (boo!). Therefore, in order to top off the vermouth supply, a detour to the small local liquor store was added to the morning errands. In reading the marmalade recipe, there was a point where the recipe could be stopped and left to sit overnight. So I decided to start on a Saturday night and then finish after my coffee and donuts date with a friend on Sunday morning.
The worst of it was definitely the Saturday night efforts. First, two of the grapefruit had their rinds cut off and the pulp segmented into a large nonreactive pot. Segmenting each fruit was a nasty process, even though it had been part of a knife skills class that my father and I had attended at the local cooking school a few years back. Basically, you take the naked fruit, slide the knife along the membranes, and the clean segment pops out. Not with these fruit! There were so many seeds that the segments broke in half down the center, so that the only way to get the pulp into the pot was to pick out all the seeds, scrape the pulp off each membrane, and then move to the next segment. Because of some extreme eczema on my hands, I had to rinse my hands every five minutes or so to just be able to stand handling the fruit. Finally, once all the pulp was removed from the membranes, the empty shell had to be squeezed to get every last bit of juice into the pot.
The second two grapefruit went a bit easier. Each was cut in half, and then each half squeezed into the pot. Of course, I had enough wits about me to set a strainer over the pot to catch the seeds that accompanied the pulp and juice. After all four halves were squeezed, I discarded the membranes and finely sliced the rinds for the marmalade.
The last step for Saturday night was to boil the grapefruit mess with water, sugar, and a bit of salt for a few minutes on high heat. Then it could sit overnight for the rinds to soften.
After 2pm on Sunday, I finished the marmalade. The most important step was to let the mess simmer until it reduced significantly and reached a minimum of 215F. That took forever so I was able to prepare the jars and other equipment for water process canning at the same time. Once the marmalade reached the desired consistency, I added roughly six ounces of red vermouth and babysat it until it reached the proper consistency again. At roughly 218F, I pulled the pot from the heat, ladled the marmalade into jars, and went through the standard motions of water process canning. For a recipe that was only supposed to yield 1 3/4 cups, I managed to fill six four-ounce jars plus an eight-ounce jar for Gigi.
I can’t say that I was initially pleased with the resulting marmalade. It tasted bitter, but not in a burnt way. It was more in a bitter herbal way. But that was just my first impression from licking the pot. I haven’t been able to revisit it with good butter and bread.
Super Sour Grapefruit Marinade
After the last of the marmalade mess was cleaned up, I decided to juice one of the remaining grapefruit into a two-cup glass measuring cup. It turned out to be a little over one-third cup, which was just what I needed to adapt the five ingredient orange chipotle marinade from the family cookbook. I added enough good olive oil to bring the measurement to two-thirds cup. The remaining ingredients were a tablespoon each of chipotle purée, honey, and cumin seed. I only had the honey! But according to the recipe, I could substitute one teaspoon of ground cumin for the cumin seed, so I figured that I could also substitute one teaspoon of chipotle powder for the chipotle purée. I had never made that substitution before, but I was feeling too lazy to go through the effort of puréeing the can of chipotles in adobo. After all the ingredients were well-mixed in the measuring cup, I gave it a taste. A bit sour, a bit sweet, with just enough heat.
I poured the marinade over a salmon fillet that I had bought earlier in the weekend, and then put the baking dish in a 350F oven for 20 minutes. Unfortunately, I got involved in a proofreading project for a friend, and the fillet stayed in the oven until I smelled the excess marinade burning in the pan. Fortunately, although the pan is going to take a lot of soaking and elbow grease to get clean, the salmon itself was cooked almost to perfection. The super sour grapefruit juice worked perfectly in the marinade. I was so happy that I had the leftover fish for three more meals.
To Be Continued...
Unfortunately, the reserved grapefruit rinds from the marmalade and the salmon marinade had grown a white mold in the ziplock bag before I was able to use them for the grapefruit bitters. But I still have two grapefruit left that I can zest and juice for bitters and cocktails. In fact, since I had bought fresh rosemary, thyme, and tarragon during my most recent trip to the supermarket, I should have the opportunity to make several batches of herbal simple syrup for the more exotic cocktails once I get my energy levels back up. So more to come!!!
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