Yuzu and Cardamom Shortbread

I am deep in cookbook mode these days (my cookbook), and I have had very little time to develop recipes outside of my book project. In spite of that, and even with the lack of family get-togethers this season, I still felt inspired to make my annual (always cardamom) shortbread. This year, I added yuzu peel I candied myself, because I found some at our local Whole Foods in late November.

I love yuzu and I thought I would never see the fresh thing until my husband and I find time to venture out to Japan one of these days, so you can imagine my delight when I found some fresh ones at the store! I, of course, got a whole paper-bag’s worth to play with… about 20 yuzu. These ones I found were grown in California! Ah, California… you sure can grow citrus… what with your perpetual sun and what-not… *looks out at the grey Vancouver rain and cries*

When I split one of them open, I found they were more seed than juice, so I imagine you will need a whole bunch of yuzu fruit just for one bottle of juice. The seeds are GIANT! Where’s the fruit?! Yuzu are definitely not built like lemons, oranges, or limes. It’s no wonder a bottle of pure juice is on the pricier side; a 150 ml bottle here in specialty food shops can cost anywhere between $9.99 to $15.99 a bottle. In spite of their small size, however, a little juice goes a long way, and their zest packs quite a punch. If you’ve never had yuzu before, I would describe it as tasting somewhere between a jasmine and an orange blossom with a lemony brightness, if you can imagine that. The flavour of yuzu really is indescribable, and it pairs wonderfully with my absolute favourite spice of all time—the always intoxicating, at once floral and camphoraceous—cardamom.

My go-to shortbread recipe is from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook. I need not any other recipe; this one just works. I simply added 1 teaspoon ground cardamom and 1 tablespoon finely chopped homemade candied yuzu to the batter. I omitted the vanilla bean paste in this version of Thomas Keller’s recipe because I really wanted that yuzu and cardamom to shine. In place of vanilla bean paste, I added a few dashes of cardamom bitters.

Admittedly, my way of making candied peel is… kinda on the lazy side. First, I take off the peel using a vegetable peeler, then I make a sugar syrup with two cups of water and two cups of sugar. I add the peel into the syrup mixture, and bring it to a somewhat rapid boil not only to dissolve the sugar, but to partially cook the peel. The fragrance of the peel will also help impart that flavour into the sugar syrup too, thereby creating a yuzu-flavoured simple syrup. You then take the syrup off the heat and pour the juice of the zested yuzu into the syrup. After letting it cool a little, I transfer the syrup and the peels into a container, and leave the peels in the syrup to marinade in the fridge until I use up all of my syrup in homemade sodas or cocktails. This is when I fish out the peels, coat them in sugar, and allow them to air dry over a period of two to three days. Voila! My lazy candied yuzu peel.

You can definitely go out there and google how to properly candy citrus peel if you need the peels, say… sooner than later. My method works for me. In fact, I currently have about half a cup of yuzu peels swimming in sugar syrup sitting in my fridge for my homemade sodas. Once I am through my syrup, the peel will have absorbed some of that sugary goodness and it will be ready to be coated in sugar and air-dried. Once dried, I simply run them through another sugar-coat pass before transferring the candied peels to an airtight container, ready for devouring or adding to baked goods.

That’s about it for my spiel on candied yuzu (and yuzu, in general). Yes, this isn’t really a proper recipe post, because the shortbread recipe really is Thomas Keller’s… I just added yuzu and cardamom. If you want to try out this recipe, there are many shortbread recipes out there in the vast wilderness of the web; here’s one I also really like; just make sure you chop the candied peels enough so they can pass through the pipe with relative ease. But when you do find fresh yuzu where you are, give the citrus a try and see for yourself why I love it so much. It may be my second favourite citrus, second only to my all-time favourite: kalamansi. What can I say? I am reppin’ pride for my motherland (the Philippines), forever.

Wooden cheeseboard by Filipino maker: Don Asperin Woodworks.

xo,
Issha