Genus: Citrus Reticulata

Common name: Mandarin Orange

I have a favorite park in my residential colony and love it for the amazing variety of trees that are planted there. One such is the Mandarin Orange tree which brings alive a childhood memory. We used to have two large such trees in my grandparents home and would sneak off the fruits to devour with some sugar and salt. Since these are quite sour, we were forbidden from eating them. So of course, we just had to! 😉

Now-a-days this tree is fruiting heavily and the miniature oranges make for a very pretty picture all over the park. I can see small kids breaking some off to relish in the sunshine. The best part about these fruits is that the peel is quite thin and just slips off at slight pressure. And the fruit look exactly like a miniature orange which is freakishly awesome. When I was younger, I used to thing this is a bonsai of the orange tree 🙂

The Mandarin orange has a very strong citrus smell and that’s thanks to the large amount of oil in its peels. Its seed and white pith is very bitter and needs to be removed carefully before eating the fruit. When it flowers, the blossoms emit a very heady citrus fragrance. It makes you want to stand under the tree and keep inhaling it.

Intrigued? Pin it for later!

My mom has one such tree growing in a huge planter and once she asked me what to do with all the fruit. I had tasted a squash made from them and got the recipe to make it for myself. Ummmm it was just uber delicious and finished off so so fast. Next my mausi experimented to make marmalade out of it, and I have to say its the best jam I have ever tasted. The only issue with both these recipes is the tedious process of peeling the fruits and removing the pith and seeds.

These days my mom simply uses them to make Bio Enzyme which she says, smells heavenly. Now that’s the neatest solution to using this produce- Way to go Mom!! 🙂

Joining in the #Thursdaytreelove linky with Parul  which is a fortnightly feature every month.

My previous post for this linky can be found here

 #TBRCHALLENGE2020   is a Reading Challenge co-hosted by yours truly for the year 2020. The sign up is opened all of January 2020. Hope to see you there.