Odd Ingredient du Jour: Naranja Agria

With lunch ("multigrain pilaf" from Trader Joe's), I had some of this, mixed with sugar and soda water to make a tasty beverage. It's an unusual ingredient, but one I find pretty useful, so I thought I'd discuss it here.

It's mock bitter orange juice, bitter orange being an integral ingredient in many Latin American recipes. I first heard of it trying to make Rick Bayless' jicama salad in "Authentic Mexican", but it's also common in meat marinades. Real bitter orange juice comes from Seville oranges, which produce extremely sour citrus flavor (apparently it's reminiscent of grapefruit) and are generally unavailable in the U.S. Bayless suggests using a mixture of lime and grapefruit juice, in addition to orange zest, as a substitute rather than bottled mix. I did that the first time I made the jicama salad, but it was expensive and a huge hassle. Next time, I bought this huge bottle of mock bitter orange instead. It contains orange juice, Seville orange oil, grapefruit juice, and a variety of preservatives. And it's huge. I don't make nearly enough Mexican food to use up this bottle in a timely manner, so I started experimenting with it. It works well in homemade vinaigrettes, but my favorite use is cocktails and mocktails. It's extremely bitter, but flavorful and a little floral. I haven't tried making tinto de veranos* with it yet, but I bet with enough added sugar it could function as a stand-in for the orange Fanta.

(*Tinto de veranos are the best drink ever. But the Wikipedia page is kind of wrong. I lived in Spain for a summer, traveling and drinking widely, and always saw them made with orange Fanta, never with lemon soda. And definitely never with Sprite)