We came back from our Thanksgiving trip to Houston with full bellies, bags of leftovers, and a box of oranges. Nick’s aunt has an orange tree in her backyard, and when we went to visit, its branches were heavy with hundreds of the ripe fruit. Nick cut them off and plopped them in this box until I said it was heavy enough. I knew right away I’d be making some curd.
My go-to lemon curd recipe is from Joy of Cooking (minus the vanilla extract), but I knew the orange version wouldn’t be right for the fruit we picked– because the oranges were so sweet, I knew I’d want to decrease the sugar and add a little lemon juice for tang. This recipe calls for both those things, with the genius added step of reducing the orange juice for a more concentrated flavor. It’s pretty much perfect.
The curd came out creamy, brilliantly golden, and not too sweet, and I have been eating it for breakfast every day on a freshly-baked biscuit. We saved a dozen or so oranges for snacking, and the rest were juiced into a gallon of the freshest OJ I’ve ever tasted. I think I’ll definitely need an orange tree of my own, someday.
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