Orange blood

The Spruce Eats: What Is a Blood Orange? An exotic member of the citrus family, blood oranges are brilliantly colored, sweet, and worth seeking out during their relatively short season. An award-winning food writer and cookbook author, Molly Watson has created more orange blood 1,000 recipes focused on local, seasonal ingredients.

Blood oranges are a rather gruesome name for a wonderfully sweet and beautifully colored citrus fruit. Along with their lovely red color, blood oranges tend to have a noticeable and delicious raspberry edge to their flavor. A blood orange is a citrus fruit that looks similar to an orange from the outside but has deep red colored fruit and juice. Anthocyanin, the pigment that gives the red color to blood oranges, starts to develop along the edges of the peel and then follows the edges of the segments before moving into the flesh.

So blood oranges can be lined or streaked with red instead of fully blood-colored, depending on the season, when they were harvested, and their particular variety. Blood oranges tend to be easier to peel than other oranges, often have fewer seeds, and have a sweeter taste. Their season is typically from December through April, so they can be harder to find and more expensive than naval or other common oranges. Blood oranges are tasty to eat out of hand. Because of their dramatic coloring, they are prime candidates for cutting into “supremes,” or membrane-free citrus sections.

Blood oranges are sweeter than other oranges. Their juice is delicious, but because it is quite a bit sweeter than classic orange juice, it ferments quickly and should be used or drunk the same day it’s juiced. Blood oranges may taste differently based on which variety you are sampling. They are less tangy than standard oranges and have more of a floral or tart flavor.

Some varieties may taste like orange juice with added raspberry, cranberry, or fruit punch flavors. The mouthfeel of a blood orange is the same as a regular orange, but the segments have fewer seeds. In addition to eating them out of hand, blood oranges are popular in baked goods and cocktails. Continue to 5 of 6 below. Blood oranges need a temperate climate with a hot season and cooler weather to bring out their true color. Thus, they flourish in the Mediterranean region, where they likely originated, and in parts of California and Florida.