A week before Chinese New Year, families who celebrate this festival will be flocking to the market to buy crates of mandarin oranges amongst other things. Here in Malaysia, we call it kum in Cantonese which sounds like ‘gold’ or ‘wealth’. We like filling our houses with ‘gold’ and giving them away when we visit friends and relatives during this season.
What do we do during Chinese New Year? Plenty. We dressed up in our news clothes, light fire crackers, giveaway or receive angpao (red envelopes with money in them), and we eat all day. In between lavish main meals, we’ll snack on cookies, jellies and…mandarin oranges.
However, I have a problem with this citrus fruit. I don’t like peeling it with my manicured nails. So I discovered a super easy way to peel mandarin oranges without using my fingers:
MATERIALS & TOOLS
- Mandarin orange
- Knife + chopping board
TUTORIAL
STEP 1: Cut off the top part of the mandarin orange. Take care to not cut too much into it to avoid cutting the flesh.
STEP 2: Now cut the bottom part of the orange.
STEP 3: Cut a slit
STEP 4: Gently pull the orange to different direction to form a long strip.
Now you can just pluck a section of the citrus easily and pop it into your mouth!
QUESTIONS
1. Does it work on other citrus fruits? I’ve tried with oranges that we use for juicing e.g navels and valencia. Unfortunately, this method doesn’t work on them.
2. Why does this work on mandarin oranges only? Unlike other citruses, the peel (or skin) of mandarin oranges are very thin. That makes it easier to peel compared to oranges with thicker skin.
3. Why is it called mandarin oranges? Some believe that it is named after the yellow robes worn by mandarin dignitaries. Mandarin oranges is also called tangerines.
Now you know there’s another way to peel your mandarins!
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