The Blog of Offensive Cooking: Grapefruit Brûlée: An Ode to Citrus Season

My roommate was kind enough to remind me that I have a grapefruit sitting in the back of the fridge. I don’t know how long it’s been there, but according to a quick email search, the last time the CSA had grapefruit was April 6^th, so it must be at least a month old. This prolonged storage, combined with the fact that some of the produce offered by the CSA at the end of its season is always looks a little…roughened, meant that my grapefruit was not looking its best.

Where have you been hiding this whole time?

Fortunately, the ice-like temperatures at the back of the fridge had preserved the grapefruit better than I could have imagined. However, it would not keep much longer, and if I had to hear my roommate remind me that I had a grapefruit in the fridge one more time, I was going to shove a screwdriver in my ear (though in his defense, watching my grapefruit wither away in the fridge probably made him want to use said screwdriver to stab his eyes out). My initial thought was to juice it – it’s quick, easy, and most importantly the deed would be done. But then I thought about Isaac Newtown. When an apple fell on his head, did he juice it? NO! He developed a theory of gravity. Surely I could take a page from his book and do something with my produce that was a little more grande than “juicing”.

I decided to make grapefruit brûlée. The methods are about as simple as you can get:

1. Cut the grapefruit in half

2. Sprinkle large-grain sugar (I used turbinado sugar) on each half

3. Set them under a broiler. I used the toaster oven to avoid heating up the whole house.

The end result was fantastic: each half was incredibly juicy and there was almost no detectable bitterness. At first I was hoping that the top would have more of a caramelized sugar layer to crack, but it was so delicious I found myself not caring after too long. It does appear that I need to invest in a grapefruit spoon, as none of our usual flatware was up to the task. As a bonus, I used a sharp knife to remove some of the grapefruit zest for making citrus salt. I'm not sure if it will work but I'll have to wait and see how it turns out!

Slicing in half revealed some beautiful ice crystals. These can only be obtained by carefully placing the citrus in the back of the fridge and then forgetting about it for more than a month.

Sprinkle some large granule-sugar on top. You can use fine grain but you will probably need a lot more of it to get the nice caramelized taste (and it might make it too sweet).