These are a luscious Italian candy normally made at Christmas time but it's so simple, why wait.

Ingredients:

1 large , fairly thick-skinned orange

2 large lemons

2 3/4 cup sugar

1/3 pound baking chocolate

Preparation:

Wash the fruit and dry it. Cut the orange into 8 sections and remove the skin from the sections without tearing it. You can eat the orange. Peel the lemons the same way. You will now have 24 sections of citrus peel. Cut each one lengthwise into three thinner strips. When you have finished cutting the strips, flip them skin-side down and carefully remove the white pith with a sharp, thin-bladed knife. The finished strips will be about 1/8 of an inch thick.

Put the strips in a small pot with cold water to cover, and bring them to a boil over a brisk flame. Boil them for 30 seconds and drain them and discarding the water.

heat the sugar in a saucepan with one cup of water. Stir as it dissolves and let it come to a boil without stirring further. When it has become transparent (figure a cooking time of at least 20-25 minutes over low heat, to keep the sugar from caramelizing), reduce the heat to a simmer and add the citrus peels. Simmer another 30 seconds without stirring, turn off the burner, and let the peels steep in the syrup for at least 6 hours.

Next, cover a dish with a sheet of aluminum foil. Remove the skin that will have formed on the syrup without stirring the syrup and remove the strips of peel one at a time (letting them drip dry) and put them on the foil.

Shred the chocolate and heat it over a double boiler or in a fondue pot while stirring gently. When it is well melted and creamy, dip the strips a bit more than half way into it, it one at a time, and return them to the aluminum foil to cool. When they have cooled, transfer them to a serving dish.