Reference point
Smell a piece of home-made candied pomelo peel while it is still warm.
Do this before you read on. An entry only works when you have just smelled the thing.
Sweet, with a faint coolness behind it, and a light bitterness that survives many changes of boiling water.
The bright part of fresh pomelo peel has gone completely during boiling and candying. What remains are the heaviest compounds of the peel, plus sugar that has partly caramelised.
Compared with squeezed pomelo peel, this is almost a different smell. The same raw material at the two ends of the evaporation range.
How to smell it
Squeeze a piece of fresh pomelo peel in one hand and hold the candied piece in the other. Smell them in turn. The common ground is in the bitterness and the faint coolness; all the brightness belongs only to the fresh peel.
Why this one is hard
Because the sugar drowns it. Beginners smell only sweetness and stop there. You have to get past the sweet layer to reach the real pomelo peel underneath.
Don’t confuse with
This entry
Candied pomelo peel
Citrus family
The same part of the same fruit at the two ends of the evaporation range. Fresh peel is bright and fast; candied peel keeps only the heaviest part, plus sugar.
Scientific note
The peel is boiled in several changes of water to remove naringin, a bitter compound that dissolves in water. The heavy terpenes, however, do not dissolve in water and stay in the peel tissue. Candying with sugar then both coats them and adds caramelisation products. The result is a mixture in which only the heaviest part of the pomelo is left.
In Vietnamese life
Candied pomelo peel is a traditional Tet sweet in many northern families, and a way of using the part that is usually thrown away. Vietnamese candying almost always uses the peel rather than the flesh — exactly where the oil is.