2/7/06 | Grapefruit
[ Currently Eating: Leftover Chinese Food ]
I realized that I’ve been ignoring fresh fruit and produce lately at Cheap Eats and opting to profile fast food or snacks. So today we’ll talk about Grapefruit. Citrus fruit can be pretty good cheap eats especially if you can find them for FREE. What, how does that work again?
Well, if you in a fairly temperate locale, there’s a good chance that you’ll have some fruit trees around you. If they aren’t your own, then perhaps your neighbors or relatives have one. Often, the fruit is left on the tree until it rots and falls to the ground. What a waste.
Now I’m not suggesting you go over to your neighbor’s house in the dark of night and appropriate their citrus crop. But if you see them completely ignoring it, you might think about asking them if you might have a few of those lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines, kumquats, tangelos, and grapefruits.
I think lemons can be especially useful for any number of recipes (tons of them call for fresh lemon juice). Limes are great for drinks. Oranges are a bit more difficult to get for free, because most people who grow ‘em definitely eat them.
I’ve got lime and grapefruit trees in my backyard but neither are spectacular producers. My parent’s trees however, are exploding with fruit. Along with oranges and billion of avocadoes (hello, guacamole), I recently picked up a bunch of grapefruits from their house.
I must say that Grapefruits are definitely not as useful for cheap eats cooking. You either juice them, or you eat them straight up. And although it depends on the variety (the ruby red one seems to be pretty sweet usually), they can be extremely, mouth-puckeringly SOUR and BITTER.
There are two ways of eating grapefruit that I know of. First is cutting it in half, putting it in a bowl, and using a knife to separate each triangle of the fruit from the bitter pith and membrane skin. The other is peeling the grapefruit and then peeling each individual section. Both cases take a bit of time, and I think this is one reason that a lot of grapefruits languish unloved on trees.
Unlike oranges, you can’t eat the membrane that each grapefruit section is encased in. Well, you can… but it is blastingly bitter. You absolutely need to remove that. Forget about putting a section in your mouth, cheweing it up, and then spitting out the membrane. I tried it, and let me tell you that’s not the road to a happy-mouth.
I usually go for the cut-in-half technique. They do sell serrated grapefruit spoons that are supposed to let you able to scoop out the grapefruit meat out of the membrane sections. But I find those make a huge mess. It’s simpler to take a butter knife and cut on both sides of each membrane section. Then take the knife and run it all along the inside of the rind to separate the back wall of each section.
As I said, depending on variety it can be so sour as to make your tongue cry. For this reason, a lot of people either sprinkle sugar on top, or drizzle some honey on it. Either seems to work pretty well for me. Grapefruit can indeed be tamed… it just needs a little lovin’ first. I would have given it a higher score since I’m assuming it’s free, but because it doesn’t have as much “multiple usage” as other citrus, it got a lower score.
Price: Free
Found at: Parent’s grapefruit tree
Cheap Eats Score: 6/10
February 7th, 2006 at 11:46 am
We bought a double bladed grapefruit knife from pampered chef that cuts along both sides of the membrane at the same time. It’s actually the only useful thing we have from pampered chef… really cuts down on the grapefruit prep time. It would be sooo nice to live in climate where you can grow citrus. Nice review!!
February 7th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
jude - dang, that sounds pretty sweet… was it pricey? I don’t eat grapefruit enough to justify getting it, although i’m not kidding that my parent’s trees are exploding w/ fruit… so maybe i can get THEM to buy it, ahaha.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Yeah, I always “sprinkle” sugar on my grapefruits. With a back-hoe. I loves me a good grapefruit, but it’s got to have lots of sugar on it. And I usually stick to the red ones, too.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:39 pm
I had a hankering for grapefruit over the weekend and thought I’d pick some up. Of course I want them at 3 for a dollar or something (my neighbor got rid of her grapefruit tree … dangit!). Instead they were $1.69 at Vons.
I’m eating some dried out grapefruit gummis instead. It’s not the same thing.
February 7th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
bf - hey how’s it going? Yeah, I ended up putting sugar on the second half. I don’t put that much though… just enough to take off some of the super-acidity.
cybele - whoah $1.69! actually, i have no idea how much they usually are because i haven’t bought them in the market recently. Are you located close to either a mexican or chinese specialty supermarket type place? The produce at some of these places can be insanely insanely cheap… however you have to be extremely careful as a lot of times they are that cheap because they are purchased just on the cusp of going bad. Still, if you are going to use it the same day you buy it, it should probably be all right.
February 7th, 2006 at 4:21 pm
That’s the thing that makes me feel so stupid, I was down at Mitsuwa in the morning and they had them for 2 for a dollar or something (the yellow ones, not the pink) and I wasn’t in the mood yet. It wasn’t until I got to Von’s that I realized my jones.
In defense of Von’s - the ones they had were as large as my head.
Dang, now I’m really needing a grapefruit fix and will have to go to the little market here by the office and get some fresh squeezed grapefruit juice.
(My brother used to live up in Sierra Madre and had an orange tree that bore really good oranges. However, there were a pair of rats that lived in the tree that just ruined all the fruit. He never could quite get rid of them (well, it probably wasn’t the same pair of rats) but at least the dogs got lots of exercise chasing them around.)
I just have a lime tree and some figs & plums. But my neighbor has a loquat tree that hangs over our fence, those are some cheap eats.
February 7th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
A fig tree? Interesting! Oh yeah I forgot about loquats… there is a loquat syrup that we have that is supposed to be good for when you have a cold. My uncle had a kumquat tree that we used to pick fruit from when I was a kid. It was weird… you eat the OUTSIDE of the fruit. The inside was so unbelievably sour, about as sour as anything i’ve ever eaten. Pretty good for making jams though.
The lime tree we have is halfway decent… it is a Bearss(?) lime tree. We planted it when we moved in and it’s been ok with producing fruit. There is a Guava tree out front that doesn’t make guavas.
I think marvo should chime in about fruit trees, I can only imagine the pickable fruit everywhere around him…
February 8th, 2006 at 9:22 am
You can also throw the sections in salads (like oranges). My mother used to put brown sugar on the prepared grapefruit half and broil - I prefer the cold, sugared version, though.
February 8th, 2006 at 9:24 am
I too have one of those double-bladed knifes like Jude. They work great. I think I just got mine at some regular store, I’ve had it for years.
You make me so jealous to live in places where fruit just drops off trees when I read stuff like this. Except for the housing prices and all, you know.
The second technique you describe is called ’supreming,’ and the sections are called ’supremes.’ I usually do a bag of grapefruit all at once so that I can just scoop it from a jar rather than bothering each morning, because I’m lazy like that. These days in Chicago I can get a 4# bag for $3.00 or so, which is not too bad.
One of my favorite ways is how my Mom used to make it: Cut it i half, and cut the sections apart for easy removal and all, sprinkle some brown sugar over it, and broil it for a few minutes until the sugar carmelizes and forms a nice crust on the top. Then she would put a maraschino cherry in the center. I don’t like cherries, but I highly recommend this preparation. It’s more like dessert, actually.
February 8th, 2006 at 10:02 am
Sally - this is the first time I’m hearing of the broiling technique, but I see that you’re not the only one who does it that way…
Peggasus - ah, don’t even begin with housing prices down here. It is so bad that here is little chance of buying a house if you have only one income, even for industry professionals who make quite a bit of money!
I never heard the term “supreming” before, interesting. So is the broiled grapefruit a regional thing?
February 8th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
I’ve never liked grapefruits, but I haven’t tried one in a long time. I also used to not like pistachio nuts, but now I love them. Maybe I should give grapefruits a chance.
February 11th, 2006 at 7:20 am
If I did eat grapefruit I would have to go with bottom feeders back-hoe suggestion. Just too tart for me. I like most other citrus and fruit though. My relitives have a plum tree that produces big, sweet, kick arse plums just about every year…
February 11th, 2006 at 9:31 am
marvo - i used to hate cilantro and only started liking it about 8 years ago… so people’s tastes still change even when you’re older.
shawn - Yeah, there was someone who used to give my parents plums as well… those were nice.
February 11th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
I wish I had the luxury of having fresh fruit growing in my neighborhood. Not only do I have to freeze in the winter, but I have to pay out the ass for a piece of grapefruit!
Out of curiousity, how did you acquire a taste for cilantro? It is my most loathed herb and I just spent a week experimenting with recipes to try and make it more palatable. It almost worked…
February 11th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
ken - cilantro took a long, long time. I will have to say that it is the direct influence of my wife. I always disliked it before, whether added to dishes, in salsa, in tacos, whatever. I started eating at vietnamese noodle places (Pho) with her and they have it as a garnish on the table or sometimes directly in the noodles. I don’t know why, but it’s like a light bulb went on and I started to first tolerate it and then actually like it. I suspect it may be something to do with the fact that they give you all manner of fresh herbs there at the table: thai basil, mint leaves, cilantro, beefsteak plant leaves, etc. So after awhile I just started to like putting them in my soup.
February 12th, 2006 at 9:17 am
The way I have understood it, as it has been explained on many cooking shows I have seen, is that a person actually has a cilantro or anti-cilantro gene. It’s something physically hardwired. If you’re the anti-kind, it tastes like soap to you apparently.
Too bad for you. Me, I love the stuff.
February 12th, 2006 at 9:28 am
peggasus - that’s very interesting! So basically i had the gene all along, but i was overcoming it by some psychological factor until more recently? I know alton brown said a few times on Good Eats he doesn’t care for it which surprised me. hm… i think that may call for an upcoming post on Cilantro. The othe day my wife saw it on sale at 10 bunches for a dollar at a local mexican market…
February 12th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
I have a really cheap grapefruit knife. Ordinarily I don’t like a one-use tool, but it sure does the job. Don’t pay a lot for the knife, just grab one when you see a cheap one sometime. Brown sugar on top makes all the difference. No need to broil- I can’t figure hot grapefruit- the brown sugar will dissolve and look caramelized anyway. Also try brown sugar on top of cooked pudding while it’s still warm - “flan” without effort. Add a drop of almond extract to vanilla pudding mix, top with brown sugar - excellent.
February 12th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
jain - I am getting hungry after hearing you talk about so many brown sugar thingies… =)
March 5th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
When and, more importantly, where can I buy loquats in the Chicagoland area?
March 6th, 2006 at 8:12 am
Nick - sorry, I have no idea for Chicago… I’m in L.A. But maybe a Cheap Eats reader will answer?
March 26th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
I like the red/pink grapefruit best, and I use SALT (not sweeteners of any type) as a flavoring aid. Yummy! Like a margarita without the booze might taste