Natural vitamin C goodness!

I have always loved blood orange juice and blood orange-flavoured carbonated drinks; however, I've never really consumed fresh blood oranges or their juice freshly squeezed. The fruit relies on low night temperatures to develop anthocyanin, the pigment responsible for the deep blood-red hue of the fruit's flesh, which was why I was surprised to see them make an appearance at the West End markets, over the past few weeks. Sure, we've been getting a few bad thunderstorms with heavy rain in recent days, but it is still incredibly hot, at temperatures soaring over 30 degrees C. Definitely not my kind of weather. So anyway, upon setting my eyes on this beautiful citrus fruit, I had to make a purchase. Then again the following week.

Blood oranges tend to be a bit smaller than their standard orange-fleshed cousins; in fact, the ones I bought were only the size of a tennis ball. At such a small size, I found it a bit awkward to cut them into  wedges to eat, because a lot of that lovely juice would be lost in the slicing process, and there would literally be only a single bite of flesh per wedge. So what do I do with a kilo of these, on a hot day like today? Why, juice them of course! This type of orange tends to be less acidic than the average, but can come in both tart and sweet varieties. The ones I bought were, thankfully, of the latter kind, so they were perfect for juicing, without having to worry about blending it with other fruit juices to sweeten it.  

To match the fancy orange, I had to use a fancy orange juicing device (in the sense of both an adjective and noun), aptly named Mandarin, which is made by my favourite designer kitchen/tablewear brand, A di ALESSI. And to match the device to its name, the designer of this cutie, Stefano Giovannoni, constructed it to resemble a Chinese man in ancient era attire. In case consumers do not understand the allusion, he even threw in the stereotypical squinty black eyes for good measure. The juicing cone forms the hat, when flipped upside-down, and the body forms the juice-collecting cup, which doubles as an oversized goblet, which you could either use to serve the juice with (there is a beak for pouring) or to drink from directly. The grooves, which encircle the peak of the cone, allow the hat to rest comfortably over the cup, regardless of which way up it is. Creative, huh?

Like with your standard fruit-squeezer, the juicing cone keeps the seeds and the majority of the pulp from entering the cup. You still have to be careful of the smaller seeds though. Also, if you're planning on squeezing the juice of blood oranges, I would recommend doing it in the sink, like what I ended up having to do. Otherwise, it will end up looking a bit like a kitchen massacre. I was wearing a white work shirt at the time - without an apron - and now it has purple-red speckles over the front. I also wore food prep gloves, as you can see from the picture, because the juice is awfully pigmenting, and you don't want your nails to look like you've been trying to stop a recent nose-bleed.

Rinse your juicing hat - et voila! - you've got a chic-looking juice-serving jug, ready to go. The only thing I don't like about the design, is that the rim of the pouring beak touches the 'hat', which means that you have to take it off before pouring the juice out. This wouldn't be a problem at all, if not for the fact that the juicing cone dips into the cup contents, if you plan to have it even half full, and even if you flip it around, the juice is still going to drip through the straining slits. Besides this, I love this design to bits.

And how gorgeous is the deep crimson colour of the juice? No artificial colours or sweeteners. Did you know that the aforementioned red pigment in the fruit, anthocyanin, is also an antioxidant? Hence, naturally, the blood orange contains more antioxidants than your average orange, which are important for protecting cells from oxidative damage. The vitamin C content (also an antioxidant) should be similar to other oranges, as should the other nutritional qualities, such as fibre. So there we go: unique in colour, sweet in taste, less acidic, and full of health benefits. It's no wonder why this orange is the choice variety grown in Italy now.

I am going to mix this with sparkling mineral water tonight, when I get a hand on a bottle, to try to recreate the delicious Italian carbonated blood orange drinks, like those made by San Pellegrino.

Meanwhile, I just received the Christmas catalogue from the Jo Malone counter at David Jones, in the post. I absolutely love their products. If they weren't so pricey, I would be gifting these products to everyone, to share my love for the brand. After I buy myself all the products I want, of course!