Ingredient

Mandarin

Mandarin is the species. Satsumas, clementines and tangerines are all mandarins or mandarin hybrids, and the names on the shop shelf are closer to marketing than to botany. What they share is a loose skin, segments that separate cleanly, and a flavour that is sweeter and more perfumed than an orange.

One species, many names

Citrus taxonomy is genuinely messy, and the mandarin sits near the middle of it: most modern citrus is descended from crosses between the mandarin, the pomelo and the citron. The sweet orange is itself a mandarin-pomelo hybrid, which is why an orange tastes like a firmer, blander mandarin rather than the other way round.

For a cook, the practical grouping is by skin and season rather than by name. A loose skin that lifts away in one piece means the fruit peels in seconds, travels badly and does not keep long. A tight skin means the opposite.

Shops rarely label the actual variety, so the reliable approach is to buy a few, find what you like, and note the time of year rather than the name.

The four names, told apart

All are mandarins or close hybrids. The differences are real but small.

Satsuma

Japanese in origin, the earliest in the season, seedless, very loose-skinned, low acid. The softest and the least keeping. What most British Christmas stockings contain.

Clementine

A mandarin-sweet orange cross. Firmer, glossier, deeper orange, seedless when grown away from other citrus. Sweeter and slightly more acidic than a satsuma, and it keeps better.

Tangerine

Loosely used, and in Britain often just a synonym. Where it means anything specific it means a deeper-coloured, more strongly flavoured, usually seedier mandarin.

Mandarin proper

Includes a long list of named varieties — Dekopon, Murcott, Ponkan and others — several of which are outstanding and none of which reach most British shops.

What to do with them

Their sweetness and low acid put them somewhere different from an orange.

• Segments in a salad with bitter leaves, where the sweetness balances chicory or radicchio.
• In a duck or pork dish, where they are gentler than orange and need less sugar.
• Zest them. The peel is thinner than an orange but the oil is intensely perfumed, and mandarin zest in a custard or an ice cream is one of the best things you can do with the fruit.
• Dried peel is a real ingredient in Chinese cooking, where aged tangerine peel goes into braises and stocks. It is worth drying strips on a rack rather than binning them.
• Whole-fruit cake, the Middle Eastern method where the fruit is boiled entire and blended, skin and all. It works better with mandarins than oranges because the pith is thinner and less bitter.
• In a syrup or cordial, where the low acidity means it usually needs a squeeze of lemon to keep it from tasting flat.

Choosing and keeping

Feel

A slightly loose, puffy skin is normal and not a fault. A fruit that is light for its size or has soft brown patches is drying out.

Keeping

Cool, in a single layer with air around them. Piled in a bowl they go mouldy from the bottom up, and one soft fruit spoils its neighbours quickly.

Fridge or not

Fridge extends them by a week or two at the cost of aroma. For fruit eaten within a few days, a cool room is better.

Seeds

Satsumas and most clementines are seedless. A clementine grown near other citrus can be pollinated and seedy, which is a growing accident rather than a variety.

Common questions