Roasted Clementines!

You know how sad clementines can be when you bring them home?  You’re looking for something juicy, bright, fresh -  but they’re just kind of hard and miserable?

Contemplating an entire bag of the things, it hit me that I should try roasting them.  All fruits and vegetables get better when they’re blasted with heat.  So I peeled the clementines, separated them into  sections and took off as much of the white strings as I could.  I slicked a cast iron pan with olive oil, cranked up the heat and roasted the sections for a couple minutes a side until they were slightly charred.

But then what?  It wasn’t quite enough.  So I heated a bit of olive oil, tossed in some red pepper flakes and a few sprigs of the rosemary plant that lives in my kitchen.  I added a couple drops of cider syrup (anything sweet would do), and a splash of vinegar, and let that sit on the stove for a few minutes. Then I poured it over the tangerine slices and let them marinate all day.

I served them, sprinkled with salt and a few grindings of  kampot pepper, on crackers spread with ricotta.  They're also great with sliced  prosciutto. But I can think of lots of other ways to use these little bites of citrus.  Think of them kind of like marmalade in the rough- and let your imagination run wild.