Winter Skies, Kitchen Aglow

Feijoa is one of the greatest fruits in existence. Over-stretched? Many Kiwi properties have a feijoa tree, so this has to speak for its popularity...well, that and the fact that most people tend not to remove fruit trees unless they are diseased. The feijoa has made a resurgence in New Zealand, now found combined with sparkling mineral water, in vodka, and combined with manuka honey in hard-boiled lollies.

Feijoas feature prominently in my past. There is a walkway at the end of the street my parents live on, and along that walkway grew feijoa and passionfruit trees. As a child I used to yank the passionfruit that pushed through the netting and the feijoas that hung from the branches that overgrew the fence, thus going beyond the boundaries of the property and being available to the public. It was more convenient for me to procure the fruit during 1990-1995 when I had to walk up and down the walkway to and from high school every weekday. I was very lucky to reap the benefits of the over-hanging branches (these people were not commercial growers and let their trees get out of control, hardly ever pruning them). Those days are sadly gone now (not just high school but also the self-imposed pruning ban - the property must have new owners...), as are those of my mother's, when she would raid her neighbour's boundary-leaping feijoa trees at night time with her siblings and fill up pillowcases with this ripe, jungle-scented fruit.

Native to Brazil, Uruguay, and northern Argentina, the feijoa was brought to New Zealand in the early 1900s. Since then many cultivars have been developed, the most recently acclaimed is the Wiki Tu, whose substantial fruit is almost the size of an average man's hand. Depending on the cultivar, the feijoa's skin colour ranges from the traditional green found in Islam to a very dark avocado-skin green, and which turns slightly lighter as it ripens. The skin's texture ranges from smooth to rough, and some are thicker than others. The flavour is intensely tropical, often described as the combination of guava (like feijoa, it is also from the Myrtle family), pineapple and strawberry. I prefer the tangy Poanaumu and Kakapo varieties, which were developed in New Zealand. The feijoa varieties allow for a good couple of months of availability; they mostly ripen from April through June. For more information on harvesting, storage and cultivars, visit the informative New Zealand Feijoa Growers Association website.

At first I was not sure what I wanted to do with the feijoas I bought (yes, I had to buy them because I only have one family member who has a feijoa tree, and he ate them all; I shant scold him, for he also has a tree of Fuyu persimmons, a bundle of which I ate directly from the source one rainy afternoon last week). I thought about making a chutney, per my fellow Kiwi food blogger Emma at The Laughing Gastronome), and I was also tempted to grab a spoon and devour them (I only ate one from the bunch as it had been so long since I last had one, though they apparently grow commercially in California - no one I know there had ever heard of feijoas until I asked about them). These thoughts co-mingled with the dog-eared pages of many cookery books for various curds (Nigella Lawson's cranberry curd in How To Be A Domestic Goddess, Kate Zuckerman's Meyer lemon curd tart in The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelle, and Tamasin Day-Lewis' redcurrant curd ice cream in Tamasin's Kitchen Classics). It is obvious from here what I decided to do...

Feijoa Curd

500g feijoas
2 eggs and 3 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
113g/4oz unsalted butter

1) Scoop out the flesh of the feijoas and blitz until smooth.
2) Into a bowl and using a spatula, push the smooth feijoa flesh through a sieve. Remember to scrape the feijoa on the underside of the sieve into the bowl.
3) In a separate bowl, beat together the eggs, yolks, and sugar.
4) Over a low heat, melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. If you are increasing the quantity, you may want to use a wider pan in order to speed up the setting of the curd.
5) Stir in the feijoa and the egg and sugar mixture.
6) Whisk constantly over a low heat until it has come together and has thickened, almost like custard. This took me approximately 15 minutes. Do not forget to stop whisking as you do not want to cook the eggs.
7) Pour the curd into a bowl and cover once cooled. It can then be refrigerated or used immediately.

It tastes similar to banana pancake batter but with a twist of guava. This almost makes enough for two 500g jars, if you are so inclined. I have kept mine in a bowl, in which it will last for a week or so. I like to have curd on toast, and there is still plenty for me to pour into a tart shell or to put between two cakes for a Victoria sponge.

Labels: Feijoa