Featured Cooking TipThe Bitter Appeal of Orange Blossom Water Infuse your baked goods with this water’s citrusy essence.
Fresh bitter-orange-tree blossoms are often distilled for their essential oils to make perfume. However, the process also creates a by-product widely used in Middle Eastern, North African, and European cooking: orange blossom water, or orange flower water. The water is pleasantly bitter, like orange peel, but intensely aromatic, and it is thus often used sparingly. While occasionally used in savory dishes, it's more frequently used in sweets such as baklava, the Lebanese rice pudding riz bi hale…
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