Blood Orange: A Love Letter

When the blood orange arrives in our kitchen, it is November. The fruit is from Catania, from the same volcanic soil that grows our pistachios. The Tarocco variety is the sweetest of the blood oranges, but it also has a bitterness that keeps it from being cloying.

We juice the oranges within hours of receiving them. The juice is a deep, almost purple-red — that is the anthocyanins, the same pigment that colours red wine, appearing only because of the cold nights on the Sicilian plain. If you grow the same orange in a warmer climate, the colour stays pale.

For our Blood Orange sorbetto, we hold back a portion of the juice and fold it in at the very end of the churn. This gives the sorbetto a bright, fresh top note that tastes like the fruit itself, not like cooked syrup. It is vegan, it is vivid, and it is a little piece of Sicilian winter in a cup.